So I figured if I was going to make a habit of it I should start a captive breeding program. It will be safer for the hermits, and an interesting side project for me. I'm building a terrarium into the glass top coffee table my fiance bought for me, but I hadn't decided on what to put in it yet. I've seen people do them for tortoises, but I don't know a thing about keeping turtles, and I also don't like the idea of keeping an animal like that in such a high traffic spot in the house. (Plus tortoises are kinda expensive.) So I was gonna just do lowlight plants, but a terrarium for garden snails sounds so much more fun! And much easier to maintain.
So I hit the interwebs for some research. Apparently a lot of people eat the little guys. (Yuck!) But its also supposed to be a fun project for kids to keep as pets.
Supposedly they thrive in temperatures between 55 and 75 Fahrenheit; that's easy because I thrive in that too.
They don't have eyes, but they do like lots of dark hiding places. Most activity occurs after dusk, as they are nocturnal. Just like hermit crabs.
Snails are vegetarians. They like a lot of the same things our hermits do, especially if its starting to get rotten. No citrus! A calcium source is a great idea for strong shells; cuttle bone is a good option.
They are all hermaphrodites, meaning that they possess both male and female reproductive parts. Any two snails can make more snails! That makes things easy as far as breeding goes.
So research done, I crawled around in the worm bed for like three hours in the early morning. I found one snail. Grrr.
So I googled it and they come out after the rain. Luckily, it rained that evening. I found like a dozen more in the span of twenty minutes.They need a few inches of soil, but different websites gave different recommendations on substrate. I decided on EcoEarth, mainly because I know it's clean and I had some laying around the house from my tank build. They're currently in a critter keeper tank, temporary until I finish my terrarium. I put in some oak branches, leaf litter, and moss (also crabitat extras), and a heavy stoneware dish for food. Apparently they can drown fairly easily, so I've just been keeping their food moist and lightly spritzing their leaves with the hermit's spray bottle.
So far, they really like clover leaves and flowers. They also seem to like carrot and strawberry tops. They're slowly munching holes in their leaf litter too. It seems like they're going to be pretty easy to feed. Mostly they get leftovers from the crabs.
I found eggs yesterday, little white things in the moss. Hopefully I'll have little baby ones soon!
I'll update if they hatch. If anyone wants to try this too, we can share ideas and tips. It should be a great nutrition source for the crabs, and a fun little project to boot. The beautiful part is that if I get too many or change my mind about the coffee table terrarium, I can always turn them loose in the worm bed again. I thought someone might like to try along with me, since the supplies are probably already in a crabber's house to begin with. I know some of you farm isopods, so maybe this isn't too much of a stretch.
