CATDOLL : CATDOLL:How to raise snails?

Snails are omnivorous animals. Young snails are saprophagous, mainly feeding on decaying plants; adult snails generally feed on green plants, including roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, etc. of various plants, especially young shoots and succulent plants, as well as various waste paper, pig manure, plant residues, etc. They will even cannibalize each other when hungry.

For indoor artificial breeding of snails, it is advisable to choose a leeward open space, build a 20-meter, 3-meter-wide, and 2-meter-high breeding shed with bamboo or steel bars, and cover the shed with plastic film. You can also use plastic soil sheds, old glass greenhouses, or soil hotbeds for growing vegetables. For indoor bed breeding, it is advisable to use cement and steel bars to cast a 1-meter-long and 0.8-meter-wide board, build 3 to 4 layers, and the layer height is 0.6 to 0.8 meters. Then use screens to separate each layer, and spread 15 cm thick humus soil on the two layers of boards. 30 snails can be placed per square meter, feed once a day, and spray water 1 to 2 times. For indoor wooden box breeding, it is advisable to make a box about 90 cm long, 45 cm wide, and 40 cm high, and build it layer by layer for centralized breeding. Spread 10 to 15 cm thick humus soil in the box, put vegetable leaves, etc., put 20 to 30 snails in two boxes, and water it once every two evenings with a watering can to make the inner wall of the box moist.

Snails should be fed once every night. Vegetables, crops, green manure crops, roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruits of each season, melon peels, fruit peels, leftovers and waste paper can be used, and some concentrated feed, protein feed and mineral feed can be added. Snails can also be fed once every two days. They can eat leftovers and humus. Keep watering to keep the site humidity at 15-27%, PH5-7, and air humidity at 75-90%. The young snails hatched in the same year will have 5 whorls in 5 months, weigh more than 50 grams, and the big ones can weigh about 90 grams. In breeding, natural enemies such as chickens, ducks, sparrows, pigeons, and mice should be prevented from harm.

Breeding points

1. The temperature is 16-40℃, the best is 25℃, and it can be higher but not lower. Heating must be done with a ground dragon fire channel, and it should be prepared all year round, especially in late spring and early summer. To prevent sudden temperature drops, it is best to use heating if conditions permit, and do not use a stove for heating.

2. Humidity. The surface humidity of the breeding soil should be maintained at 25% to 35%, and the relative humidity of the air should be 85% to 90%. It should be kept wet rather than dry. To control humidity and keep moisture, cover the top with plastic cloth.

3. To prevent dry wind and cold air from blowing in directly, the entrance should have double doors, hanging cloth and wind shield.

4. Resolutely control the entry of odorous gases into the breeding grounds.

5. The pH of the breeding soil must be controlled at 6.5-7.5. Do not use contaminated sandy soil that has been treated with pesticides or chemicals.

6. The breeding container must have good water permeability and air permeability.

7. Do not use strong light when not working. Darkness is best. Use 15W red bulbs for lighting at night to stimulate egg laying.

The success of snail farming depends on the hatching of eggs. The indoor temperature should be controlled at 20-25℃, the air humidity at 90%-95%, and the soil surface humidity at 25%-30%. The egg collection and hatching method should be improved, and the snails should be rotated for 60 days. This method can greatly improve the breeding efficiency of snails, and the shelling rate can generally reach more than 95%.

8. The feeding of young snails is the key to the success or failure of the rapid development of the number and production of snails. Special attention should be paid to the control of temperature and humidity. The temperature should generally be controlled between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius, the moisture content of the breeding soil should be 30% to 35%, and the relative humidity of the air should be 80% to 90%. Feed them with fresh and juicy feed supplemented with calcium food.

9. When humidifying the pool for snails aged 1 to 3 months, do not splash water on them. Use a sprayer instead, and warm water is best.

Remove sick or dead snails promptly if found.

10. Clean the feces frequently. It is best to raise earthworms and snails together to kill two birds with one stone.

To prevent natural enemy invasion, exterminate rats and ants, regularly spray with 1/1000 dichlorvos solution, which can effectively kill the snail's biggest natural enemy - mites. Regularly use diluted peracetic acid to disinfect the snail breeding places and kill pathogenic microorganisms.

The feed formula with the lowest cost and best effect: 50% rice bran, 40% shells, 8% yeast powder, and 2% others.

Feeding method

It can be roughly divided into two types: outdoor open type and indoor closed type.

Outdoor open-type breeding includes trench-type, shed-type, courtyard-type, etc., which allow snails to grow and reproduce in a protective circle similar to natural conditions. Indoor closed breeding can use plastic basins, earthen basins, wooden boxes, cement pools, tanks, barrels, cans, etc., and use gauze, wet cloth, and film to seal the mouth to keep warm and moisturize and prevent rodent damage. Indoor closed breeding is convenient for regulating temperature and humidity. 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.

Preparation of feeding soil

1. Compound garden soil

30% uncontaminated sand, 30% farmland 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 insecticide, sieved, and then water is added to make the humidity about 40%, that is, it can be kneaded into a ball and fall apart with a blow. The thickness of the soil in the pot is: 7 cm for growing snails, 10 cm for adult snails, and 3 cm for young snails. It is replaced once every 1 to 2 months of feeding.

2. Sponge replacement method

Spread a 5 cm thick 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.

Feeding method

For young snails under 1 month old, they should be fed with some fresh and tender leaves. The concentrated feed should be softened with boiling water and stuck to the leaves. Feed once a day. The optimum temperature should be controlled at 25℃～30℃. The temperature difference between day and night should not be large. Do not spray water directly on 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%～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, 400～200 per square meter. A 60×30×25 cm breeding box can hold 100 snails. After 5～6 months, when the shell height is 4 cm and the weight is more than 40g, they can be harvested.

Winter 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 25 cm and cotton wool should be used for insulation.

Snails have a wide range of food, mainly vegetables, weeds, melon and fruit peels; leaves, stems, buds, flowers, juicy fruits of crops; all kinds of green grass, highland barley feed, juicy feed, bran feed, and cake feed. Snails eat with their mouths.

Snails are hermaphrodites. When two snails meet, they touch each other with their tentacles, then face each other with their heads, connect their bodies, and touch each other's reproductive cavities. After a short pause, the reproductive parts suddenly reverse and insert the love arrow (penis) into each other's reproductive holes. Generally speaking, snails mate for a long time, and each mating takes about 2-3 hours, sometimes up to 4 hours. After mating, the fertilized eggs are produced outside the body through the reproductive holes. The eggs are laid in the soil several millimeters deep underground or under rotten wood and fallen leaves. The snail larvae develop in the egg shell, and the hatched larvae have become snails. 1. Snails are hermaphrodites, and they mate with different bodies. Both males and females lay eggs. The snail itself is both the father and the mother. The two snails cooperate with each other, and both repeatedly stimulate each other's reproductive holes with their love arrows (penis). After intense piercing movements, both penises are inserted into each other's vaginas and ejaculate. 10 days after conception, both parties can lay eggs, and the eggs can hatch into small snails 8 days later. 2. The mating time is long, the egg laying speed is slow, and the difficulty is high. The mating time of estrus snails can last for 2 to 3 hours each time, and some can last for more than 6 hours. Snails can lay 2 eggs per minute, and each egg laying time can last for 1 to 2 hours, and some can last for more than 3 hours. During the egg laying process, snails often die due to poor feeding, lack of nutrition, exhaustion and dystocia. Some of them die due to dystocia, accounting for about 30% of the total number of snails. 3. High reproduction rate. Each snail can lay eggs 6 to 7 times a year, and an average of 200 eggs can be laid each time. A snail weighing 35 grams can lay 120 eggs each time, a snail weighing 40 to 50 grams can lay 150 to 180 eggs each time, and a snail weighing 60 to 100 grams can lay 300 to 400 eggs each time. 4. The reproduction of snails is not limited by age. Under the same suitable reproductive conditions, the larger the snail, the more eggs it lays. 5. Short life span. The life span of a snail is generally 5 to 6 years. Unsuitable living conditions will accelerate the death of the snail and shorten its life span. 6. Three slows, two fasts, one difficult, and one more. Three slows are slow movement, slow mating, and slow egg laying; two fasts are fast growth and fast shell shrinkage; one difficult and one more are difficult egg laying and laying many eggs.

In general, snails are easy to keep.

Thanks

Snails can be raised outdoors, indoors or in air-raid shelters. Wooden boxes, tanks, basins, cement pools, etc. are commonly used for indoor breeding. The breeding box is generally 94×45×45 cm. A movable screen door should be set on the side of the box to facilitate ventilation, observation, feeding and water spraying. Each box generally contains 50 to 100 adult snails, 1000 to 3000 medium snails, and 3000 to 5000 small snails. It should not be too dense. Multiple boxes can be placed repeatedly, and mixed soil is placed at the bottom of the box to facilitate humidity regulation and egg laying for adult snails. The mixed soil is a mixture of half sand and half garden soil. Use boiling water to scald the garden soil to kill pests, then mix it into the sand and spread it on the bottom of the box, about 10 cm thick. The humidity of the soil is generally maintained at about 40%, and the indoor air humidity in the box is preferably 75% to 90%. If the humidity in the air is not enough, the surface of the snail shell will be dry, which will cause death in severe cases, so water should be sprayed on the snail body frequently to adjust the humidity. The suitable temperature for snails to grow is 20-30℃. In order to increase the reproduction rate, the room should be heated to maintain a temperature of 20-25℃, but death from gas poisoning must be prevented. Snails like to move around, so broken bricks and branches can be placed in the breeding box (pond) for snails to crawl, live and avoid adverse environments.