Snail farming - Snail wrangling

As a snail wrangler, I feel there is a decided lack of snail farming sayings that sufficiently express the dangerous, and action packed lifestyle that only living on a working snail farm can offer.

Every day I peer into my sophisticated snail farming saucepan, and see that they have actually eaten, but mostly they seem to do a lot of sleeping. Surprisingly, when I open the lid, they often make a break for freedom, and sometimes succeed. Which gives rise to the first of my old snail farming sayings.

"Snails. They're faster than you think."

Aside from escape efforts, the snails have also been exhibiting egg laying behaviour. Egg laying behaviour in so far as they dig into the soil, but don't actually lay any eggs. I cant help thinking that the soil is unsuitable or something. I might add a little sand to it.








From what I've read, I should have seen some eggs by now from at least one of my clan, so I'm going to try to learn a bit more about their reproductive requirements.

Their house currently looks like this.

Every time I put food in for them, it's eaten as soon as I wander off for a bit and look in again. But I still haven't actually seen them eat.

Perhaps they're shy.

But I suspect they're planning something behind my back.

Which gives rise to my second old snail farming saying.




"Never, ever, turn your back on a snail."

Snail farming - Snail deaths

I hoped to be posting about egg laying today as my snails were due, but sadly there are two dead snails in my collection.

For reasons un-known even to me, they look like they might be the two that I found mating on my front lawn. It was these that I thought should be laying eggs today.

I have no idea what may have killed them. Perhaps they were in poor condition in the first place, or perhaps I failed to feed them some special food they needed.

I'll do some more research.

Snail farming - sophisticated snail breeding containment saucepan

When I found those two snails making out on my front lawn, I moved them into a container with a narrow, clear plastic tub of dirt (cut from a drink bottle). This was in the hope that when they laid eggs, I'd not only be able to see them digging down, but I might even be able to see the eggs through the side of the clear plastic tub. If I get really lucky I might be able to actually record them in the laying process.

If all goes well, they should be laying within the next 2 or 3 days.


The soil is a rich but well draining soil from my backyard. I hope it will be suitable. At this stage I have no idea what they really like to lay eggs in, but anything that has conquered the world like the garden snail cant be all that fussy.

The snail on the rim of the plastic tub (at 3 o'clock) seems to be spending quite a bit of time in the soil section so it may be looking for a good place to lay some eggs. I foolishly didn't mark the two I found on the front lawn so I have no idea which ones I can expect to lay eggs.

I've also been collecting whatever snails I can find and adding them to the beginnings of what will one day be my snail farm.

Sophisticated snail breeding containment saucepan

Currently, my snail farm looks a lot like a pyrex saucepan.

Some thing's look like other things by coincidence, but on this occasion, my sophisticated snail breeding containment device looks like a pyrex saucepan because it is.








I dropped a stack of alf-alfa seeds into their home, in the hope that snails would eat them when they grew, but over the next week was surprised to discover they had no interest at all in sprouts.

It was my hope that I might be able to use alf-alfa as the main food source, but after seeing how quickly lettuce gets devoured, I think it will be lettuce in the snail farm after all.

Currently my wild-collected snail farm population stands at forty. These are made of various sizes ranging from 10 mm, to about 27 (measured from side to tip of spiral)

Snail farming - Farm idea

It occurred to me a while ago that the basic aquaponics system could be adapted to growing snails. This came about partly because my lease says I'm not to have fish, but mentions nothing about snails, and partly because I couldn't help it.

Sometimes stuff just occurs to me.

My current aquaponics system looks like this. Water (and fish) at the bottom, veggies growing in an inert media in the container above.

I could just add snails to the top garden section, but they would eat everything to death within seconds.







My plan would be to restrict how much of the fresh growing vegetable matter they could get at, in the hope that the plants could be kept alive for ever.

It would look something like this.

"A" and "B" would be the normal water levels of the flood and drain cycle, And "C" would be a once or twice a day rinse to bring down solids from the snail area. Those brown things are my depiction of snails. Those green things are lettuce growing.

The snails would be in a stainless steel wire cage, which would allow them access to only the tops of plants (lettuce etc) growing in the aquaponics system.

The cage would be covered on all sides so the snails couldn't escape, and would have some terracotta pots to hide under, water, calcium supplements, and whatever else it turns out snails like.

The rinse cycle should in theory, pull solids down into the garden level, where added compost worms would digest them and spread them out,  so the nitrifying bacteria in the media could do its thing. This would in turn feed the plants that would partly feed the snails.

The system wouldn't work as an endless loop because I'll be pulling snails out for escargot. Once you eat something from the system, the removed energy needs to be replaced. That's where the veggie scraps come in. Since moving from the country where we had all kinds of scraps eating critters that did things like convert scraps to eggs, I've become a bit freaked at how much food we throw away.

Gram for gram the scraps represent almost as much as we eat. Much of it will make snail food.

So that's the plan, but plans have a habit of changing around here.

Inputs would be household kitchen scraps, and perhaps a little calcium for their shells.

Snail farming - Reproduction

[Edit from the future - QI featured these facts in their show last night. Other than knowing the Latin name for a giant squid, the facts I add to this blog might be my only chance to win a pub quiz, so the less they appear on TV the better]

My garden snails are Helix aspersa and they reproduce in a truly astonishing fashion. I'm not talking about "A little odd, but what they do in their own homes is up to them". I'm talking some really strange stuff.

Firstly, the best part about snail sex is that everybody walks away pregnant. Which is nice. It must be a lot easier to get your partner to come with you to your birthing classes if they also need to learn how to breath.*


Helix aspersa are hermaphrodites meaning they have all the required kit of both males and females, and although it's not normal practice among snails, its actually possible for them to self fertilise.

Normally (whatever that means) two snails participate.

It's starts with a cuddle.

And then (and here's where it gets interesting) they each whip out a hard calcium spear and go about stabbing the other with it. Through their body. Stab. Into their skin. Through their skin, and into their body. Where their calcium dart adds the required fertility to the others snail's eggs and, in turn is similarly also stabbed.

That blur is camera shake and not crazy fast paced snail action.

From what I've observed in my garden, the dart seems to be left behind. ie it breaks off.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

It's all part of the rich tapestry of life.

The dart looks like this. 


The one pictured here is around 4 or 5 millimetres long.

Cupid's got nothing on these guys. In fact it's possible that my new and tasty garden dwelling buddies are Cupid's original inspiration to take up the bow and arrow in the first place.







*TV told me.

I'm back

Escargot

I'm back.

Or so it seems.

I won a photo competition. Which is nice. I found some landscapes in my aquaponics system and spent a few hours with the camera. The pic that did it was the one above. It's a photo of my small blue barrel aquaponics test system. That's one of my little silver perch featured in the foreground, and the black algae 45cm away on the rear wall of the blue barrel is exactly that.

What a difference a frame makes

 For those that care about such things, the pic was taken on a little digital happy snap Canon PowerShot A490 on auto mode (with some adjustment of the flash output by partially covering it with my finger) no post production was done, other than cropping the image a bit to get rid of the edges of the barrel and the water flowing in as these things ruined the illusion. So basically the image was just taken and not interfered with. The photo to the left is not the one it was cropped from, but shows what the scene really is.

And they say photos don't lie.

I've also moved home. We are now conveniently close to some things that are good to be conveniently close to, and depressingly far from some other things that we loved.

In the time I spent away I didn't do much of interest, and almost totally failed to learn anything new, so you haven't missed anything by my lack of posts.

Because of my new location, I don't think windmills are going to be acceptable. So I'm thinking of growing some snails. Snails tend to be a bit quieter than windmills. Is quieter a word. It should be. There are already stack of snails in the new backyard so I'm off to a good start. I know a bit about snails, but I want to develop a new way of growing them aquaponics style.

Part of the problem is the lease on my new home explicitly states that there are to be no fish. Inside, or out, so I'm hoping to power my veggie garden with snail poop.

Oh well.

Stay tuned for more "Things".