Breeding Snails For Sale Or Personal Consumption. Types, Content, Photos

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

Slugs and their "sisters" snails are unpleasant creatures well known to all summer residents. How much harm they can bring to our plants, I don’t want to say. But some types of snails are a delicious treat. They are used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. In breeding, these gastropods are one of the most unpretentious. Therefore, more and more summer residents use snails to open their small business. In this article I will tell you why it is profitable to breed snails and how to get started in this business.

Content:

• Where to get snails for breeding?
• Snail keeping
• Feeding and care
• How do snails lay eggs?
• How can you make money on snails?
• Snails for beauty

Where to get snails for breeding?

You can breed different types of snails. But it is better to use those that can feel good in specific living conditions. So, for example, Achatina snails are quite large, but they live only in warm conditions. When the temperature drops to -3 … -4 ° С, they die. Therefore, such snails can be bred only in closed rooms, providing them with optimal temperature and light conditions.

Grape snails feel great in the middle lane. You can leave them in outdoor enclosures for the winter. But for this, the earth must be loose, since they are screwed into it to a depth of about 20-25 cm. In such conditions, grape snails fall into winter suspended animation. If you want them to continue to grow in the cold season, to lay eggs, then in early autumn they are removed to enclosures indoors, also creating optimal light and thermal conditions. With the onset of spring warming, slugs are again transferred to outdoor enclosures.

There are other types of these gastropods that are also good for food. But for novice farmers, it is better to pay attention to the most unpretentious grape snails, which naturally live in mid-latitudes. You can collect them for breeding on your own at your own dacha, especially after the rain. You can also buy selected grape snails by weight from breeders.

Snail keeping

You can keep snails in outdoor enclosures and parasols in enclosed spaces. If you decide to keep snails outdoors, you need to create boosters for them. You can make these devices from scrap materials to save money. The main thing is that the mollusks cannot get out and that they are not annoyed by predators. After all, snails are not averse to eating some species of birds, hedgehogs.

To make a parapet of boards, you first need to dig in the bars vertically around the perimeter of the future structure. Now boards are nailed horizontally on them. Moreover, the first one needs to be dug 10 cm into the ground so that the snails cannot get out, having made a tunnel.

If you have a few boards, then you can beat off only the lower sides with them, and cover the upper parts of the sides with a plastic mesh, throwing it up and up. Thus, the roof will also be made from this mesh. Provide a hole through which you can interact with the shellfish. You will need to close the hole with a cord or Velcro. Snails like to crawl along vertical walls, so the inside of the pen should be such that they cannot get outside.

Another option is to use a small-section mesh, so that the snails cannot crawl through its holes. If the sides are made of metal mesh, then at the top it is also necessary to close this structure with plastic mesh or other similar material.

Grass should be growing at the bottom of the outdoor snail enclosure. If it is soft, the mollusks will gladly eat it. In some cases, it is advisable to pre-excavate this area in order to sow soft types of grasses.

If there is not enough vegetation, make small U-shaped visors for the snails, similar to miniature benches. Here they can hide in the heat. For this, you can use plastic, wooden boards.

If you decide to make parasites for an enclosed space, then you can put together wooden frames from thin bars, upholster them with metal or plastic mesh. These frames are then assembled into boxes where the slugs will live.

Some grow snails for their own consumption in aquariums or terrariums on windowsills or balconies. But you need to make sure that the snails are not too hot.

Feeding and care

Since slugs like sufficient moisture, you need to periodically spray them and their habitats with water from a spray bottle through a hole in the nets. This can be done in the morning and late afternoon.

If you keep mollusks at home, then put the earth on the bottom in the terrarium (aquarium), pour crushed shells, shell rock. Snails need such a source of calcium. Never use pharmacy calcium tablets!

Grape snails are fed, for the most part, with plant residues. They gladly eat cabbage, lettuce, grape leaves. Especially snails love the leaves of dandelion, strawberry, plantain, raspberry. They can also be given slightly rotten plants - they contain microorganisms necessary for snails.

You can give these mollusks berries, fruits, insect larvae, raw eggs. In addition to the shells of chicken eggs and shell rock, you can give them fish bone meal.

Snails are fed once a day in the late afternoon. They usually sleep during the day.

Snails should not be eaten:

• pasta;
• bread;
• beans;
• raw potatoes;
• chemical fertilizers;
• salt;
• any food for other pets;
• spicy, sour, bitter, fried foods;
• radish;
• citrus;
• boiled eggs;
• bow.

Otherwise, these mollusks are unpretentious, theoretically they can only be fed with leftovers from their table, excluding prohibited foods.

So that snails have plenty of plant food, before settling them in an outdoor enclosure, you can sow in it not only soft varieties of grass, but also creeping clover, fodder beets, legumes, sunflowers, rapeseed. In order for the snails to drink, water is poured into them in low bowls. In the heat, snails take water procedures in them with pleasure.

How do snails lay eggs?

Snails are hermaphrodites, therefore, all specimens that have reached 6-7 months can lay eggs. Some snail species can only do this after a year. An individual ready to mate is easy to identify. She stretches her torso, crawls intensively, as if looking for something. When the mollusk finds a partner, mating takes place.

After 20-30 days after that, the snails lay their eggs - they dig minks in the loose earth, put their white caviar there. To simplify the collection of caviar, farmers have come up with the idea of placing soil in tall plastic containers (snails lay their eggs right here).

Snail caviar is considered a delicacy - it can be eaten or sold. In nature, molluscs lay their eggs in the spring. When breeding them in captivity with the creation of the desired regime, they can do this both in spring and autumn.

How can you make money on snails?

Not only snail caviar can be obtained from breeding these molluscs. Usually, grape snails reach commercial maturity by the age of 1.5 years. Then you can eat them and, of course, sell them.

More and more domestic restaurants and cafes include such exotic food in their menu, and the demand is greater than the supply. Therefore, there should be no problems with the sales market. But, in addition to registering your own business, you will need to provide a certificate from the medical service that the meat of your snails meets quality standards, it can be sold.

Pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies are interested in snails. These gastropods are used to produce cosmetics and some medicines. Moreover, not only large snails are suitable for medical and cosmetic purposes, but also small ones that are unlikely to be bought in a restaurant.

Some farmers keep snails in order to feed their poultry. Ducks and pheasants eat this protein feed with pleasure.

Now more people are becoming interested in snail breeding, so this topic is becoming more and more relevant.

Snails for beauty

On the Internet, I somehow came across a video of a farmer who has been raising snails for several years and selling them to women who want to look great.

You need to lie down, grease your face with sour milk and put a grape snail on it. The mollusk will slowly crawl, lick off the milk, instead of smearing it on the face with its mucus. This mucus has an excellent effect on the skin - it moisturizes, nourishes and rejuvenates literally before our eyes. It is enough to lie in this position for 20 minutes, then remove the snail and rinse your face with water.

By the way, for such cosmetic procedures you don't even need to buy a snail, but find it in a garden or forest. Some do this, and keep 2-3 copies as domestic animals. They are housed in a terrarium, fed with leftovers from the table and regularly "make themselves beautiful."