CATDOLL : CATDOLL:What is a snail?

What is a snail?

Snails, also known as winding snails, occur in two species: the gray snail and the homotypic snail. They have similar morphology and a wide host range. They are one of the main pests of cruciferous vegetables and pose a threat to the seedlings of many vegetables.

Do snails need humidity when hibernating?

The snail's entire body includes shells, heads, necks, shell membranes, feet, internal organs, capsules, etc. It has a spiral shell on its back. Its shapes are varied and of different sizes, including pagoda-shaped, gyro-shaped, cone-shaped, spherical, pipe-shaped, etc. At present, the domestically cultivated snails such as the giant snail with a hood, scattered snails, bright snails, brown cloud agate snails, and white jade snails all have their own unique appearances.

B. Physiological habits of snails:

The white jade snail likes to live in a dark, humid, loose and humus-rich environment. It hides during the day and comes out at night. It is most afraid of direct sunlight and is sensitive to the environment. The most suitable environment is: temperature 16-30℃ (growth and development are fastest at 23-30℃); air humidity 60%-90%; breeding soil humidity about 40%; pH 5-7.

It will hibernate when the temperature is below 15℃ or above 33℃. It may be frozen to death or heat-killed when the temperature is below 5℃ or above 40℃.

B. Snail's diet:

Generally, they are fed with cabbage, green vegetables, lettuce and other plants in spring; various melon and fruit peels, sugar cane, sunflower leaves, etc. in summer; and vegetable leaves, potato chips, carrots, etc. in autumn and winter. White jade snails do not eat grass, weeds, and refuse to eat onions, ginger, garlic, leeks, mustard and other odorous foods.

Fruits and tubers should be cut into thin strips or slices before feeding, and attention should be paid to the diversity of food to prevent picky eating. In order to speed up growth and increase egg-laying rate, it is best to add crushed wheat bran, rice bran, bean curd residue, yeast powder, soybean powder, fish meal, bone meal, shell powder or stone powder to the feed. Common feed formula: 50% rice bran and bran, 40% shell powder, 8% yeast powder.

Others (fish meal, soybean meal, flour) and trace elements and special additives 2%. The amount of concentrate added accounts for 10% to 15% of the total feed. Feeding should be around 6 pm, and the feeding activity reaches its peak at 20 to 24 hours, and stop feeding at 6 am the next day.

2. Preliminary preparations for investing in the Snail Project

A. Room preparation:

It is best to build the breeding room in a north-south direction, with windows on the east and west.

If there is an existing room, you can use plastic sheeting to suspend the ceiling at a height of 2 meters, and use plastic sheeting to cover the four walls from the inside. If you need to build a new room, it is better to build it 4.3 meters wide from east to west and 5 meters long from north to south (one room), and you can also increase the length according to the actual situation. The height is 2 meters, and the four walls inside are tightly covered with plastic sheeting. The intersection of the plastic sheeting should be glued with plastic tape. The purpose of wrapping with plastic sheeting is to prevent the wall from absorbing the indoor temperature and temperature, so as to maintain the balance of the indoor micro-environment.

B. Preparation of the breeding rack:

The layout of the breeding rack is based on a 1-meter-long and 1-meter-wide breeding grid. There can be 4 grids inside and 3 grids outside. It can be built into 7-8 layers from top to bottom, which can be determined according to the height and convenience of operation.

C. Preparation of breeding soil:

The snail's requirements for breeding soil are: moist, loose, rich in humus and a certain amount of organic matter, not polluted by toxic and harmful substances such as fertilizers and pesticides, neutral in pH, and not easy for shells to stick to it.

D. Feed preparation:

Mainly vegetable leaves or wild vegetables, weeds, etc. Concentrated feed is mainly corn flour, rice bran, etc., and additives are bone meal and fish meal with high calcium content.

E. Preparation of other equipment:

Insulation equipment, thermometer, sprinkler, etc.

F. Introduction preparation:

When introducing new species, you must purchase them from a regular unit, especially if you have no market for them and local friends do not have the habit of eating snails. You must check whether the unit introducing the species has recycling capabilities and deep processing projects. This is the key to introducing new species.

3. Basic knowledge of snail breeding and management

A. Feeding method

Generally, there are two types: outdoor open-type and indoor closed-type. Outdoor open-type includes trench-type, shed-type, courtyard-type, etc., which allow them to grow and reproduce in a protective circle similar to natural conditions. Indoor closed-type breeding can use earthen pots, plastic pots, wooden boxes, cement pools, barrels, cylinders, cans, etc., and seal them with gauze, wet cloth, and film to keep warm and moisturize and prevent rodent damage.

Indoor closed breeding is convenient for regulating temperature and humidity, and with sufficient feed, it can not only relieve the hibernation of snails, but also achieve the purpose of winter breeding. It is best to use plastic film to seal the surroundings of indoor breeding to maintain temperature and humidity.

B. Preparation of breeding soil

①Compound garden soil

30% uncontaminated garden soil, 30% sandy soil, 20% yellow sand, 15% coal ash, and 5% stone powder are mixed and crushed, exposed to the sun for 3 to 5 days for disinfection and pest control, sieved, and then water is added to make the humidity at about 40%, that is, it can be formed into a ball when squeezed and will fall apart when hit.

The thickness of the soil in the pot is: 10cm for adult snails, 7cm for growing snails, and 3cm for young snails. It should be replaced once every 1 to 2 months of breeding.

②Sponge replacement method

Spread a 5cm layer of sponge on the bottom of the pool or box, and keep it 4 times its own weight in water. Clean up leftover food every day and clean up feces every 3 days.

C. Feeding method

For young snails within one month of age, they should be fed some fresh and tender vegetable leaves. The concentrated feed should be softened by boiling water and stuck on the leaves. Feed them once a day. The optimum temperature should be controlled at 25-30℃. The temperature difference between day and night should not be too large. When spraying water, do not spray directly on the young snails.

In addition to green feed, growing snails should be fed with more concentrated feed, and trace elements and additives should be added. The daily feeding amount is 7% to 10% of the snail's body weight. Feed should be placed in a food rack or food bowl to clean up the residue. The stocking density increases from dense to sparse with the increase of individuals, 400 to 200 per square meter. A 60×30×25cm breeding box can hold 100 snails. After 5 to 6 months, they can be harvested when their shell height is 4cm and their weight is more than 40g.

D. Wintering management

Hibernation can be ended under artificial temperature and humidity control. If the breeding conditions are not met, when the temperature drops to around 15℃, insulation treatment should be carried out according to local conditions. If it is moved indoors, the soil should be thickened to 25cm, and cotton wool should be used for insulation.

3 Snails that are active at night and dormant during the day have a wide range of adaptability. In normal seasons, they are generally active and feed at night, except for sunny days after rain. Their activity pattern is to start at 18:00 in the afternoon and reach a peak at 20:00-24:00. After 24 hours, the activity gradually weakens until it stops completely at 6:00 in the morning of the next day.

Snails have very poor vision, and their vision is almost zero under strong light. In the dim light of the evening, they can pick up food within 20 cm. They live in bushes, grass, piles of rocks, under dead branches and leaves, in soil blocks and cracks around crop roots, and in dark, humid, and humus-rich environments around greenhouses, vegetable sheds, and livestock pens. 2.4 They like to burrow into the soil. This is because snails need to burrow into the soil during their growth and development, first to absorb nutrients, organic matter, and calcium; second to regulate temperature; third to resist enemies; and fourth to lay eggs.

2.5 Hibernation Hibernation is a habit of snails to resist adversity, protect themselves, and thus maintain life. When snails encounter adverse conditions such as high temperature, low temperature, lack of food, drought, etc., they will automatically secrete mucus to form a membrane to seal the shell opening until the adversity is lifted, and then gradually wake up and break the membrane to continue activities. Its hibernation can last up to 6 months. Before hibernation, snails often eat a lot of food and store a lot of nutrients to consume energy during hibernation.

Generally, snails hibernate for about 5 months. 2.6 Omnivorous. Generally, they mainly eat green plants. In addition, they also take in some sand and soil because the soil contains humus. Young snails that have just hatched are mostly saprophagous, mainly eating decaying plants. When they are first hatched, the young snails only eat the leaf flesh of crops, leaving the epidermis. When they grow up, they often eat holes or notches in the leaves of crops.

The leaves where the snails crawled left white colloid and feces. Adult snails mainly feed on various green plants, especially young shoots and succulent plants. They also feed on vegetables of the leguminous, cruciferous and solanaceous families, as well as cotton, mulberry, fruit trees and other crops. In general, the plants eaten are mostly young leaves and buds. When eating young leaves, they scrape from the edge of the leaves, leaving only the veins. Snails are ferocious eaters and eat a lot, equivalent to half of their own body weight.

If the climate is mild and there is plenty of rain, especially in rainy years, snails can eat non-stop day and night. Snails usually start eating after 18:00, reaching their peak between 20:00 and 23:00. After midnight, their food intake gradually decreases until the early morning when they gradually stop eating and hide in the water or in secluded places. However, snails are also very resistant to starvation. Artificially cultivated snails will not starve to death even if they are not fed for half a year.

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