I want your pest snails to feed my snakes! :)

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Hey all, I have a pair of Keeled Slug Eating Snakes that would greatly appreciate your help feeding them! All they eat are slugs and snails.

I will gladly purchase your snails to feed my snakes. The snails should be no smaller than 1/2" and no larger than 1".

If you've got slugs, I'm looking for slugs that are around 1/2" long.

If you've got both, I'll take both, but they must be transported separately as the slugs will get eaten by the snails.

When transporting slugs, if you provide holes for their container, please make sure the holes are only the size of a pin prick. Any larger and they will escape. Escapee slugs are very bad!

I currently don't need very many, (about 1 - 2 dozen will suffice).

My garden is currently running short on snails and slugs. And my neighbor no longer sends me bags of snails.

You may pm me to make arrangements.

Thank you very much in advance. My snakes thank you too.

[Leafmite]

Some aquatic snails breed like crazy. I have some that don't even need to be in the water all the time but that might be to escape the betta fish who has developed a taste for them. Maybe a type of aquatic snail that breeds like crazy and can spend short periods out of the water would be a long term solution.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I think that's what they really feed on in the wild. Although, they don't seem to be terribly picky as to what kind of snail it is as long as they're not too small, nor too big.

One of these days I'm gonna go over to Malaysia and study these little buggers in the wild.

I still simply don't understand how these snakes could afford to be such obligate feeders of what on the surface seems to be unsustainable prey items over the duration of their entire lifespans, (which is approximately 20 yrs)!

Unlike some other snakes out there, these guys have high metabolism rates as far as snakes go. They can eat as often as once every week! I try not to feed them this often though. Obesity can still be an issue even when they are offered their natural prey foods.

[Phal grower]

I've never heard of that snake species so I looked it up. Very cool looking and interesting prey specialist. Sorry all I have are the common aquarium snails. Good luck.

[The Mutant]

I also had to check what type of snakes they are and how cute!

Unfortunately, I can't help with your request but I just had to say that I find the species cute. Do you have any photos of your snakes?

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

These are a couple of older photos.

[Tsuchibuta]

If aquatic snails are a go, I can gather you a slew in the summer. (they are under a few feet of ice right now).

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I am willing to try the aquatic snails out. I really think they eat semi-aquatic snails of a certain size. Please let me know when they are available.

Thank you.

[Vanda lover]

Have you thought of breeding slugs? They can't be all that hard to breed. Most of our slugs are around 6 to 7 inches, so they won't do. Will they eat worms?

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I've thought about farming both terrestrial snails and terrestrial slugs, but they're actually a bit more difficult to do than I thought they were.

The common brown garden snails and slugs appear to be mellow and unassuming creatures, but they're actually aggressive and cannibalistic. It's just difficult to fathom because they move so slow. This is one of the biggest problems with heliculture.

The other problem is, depending on the species of snails or slugs, they have varying degrees of hardiness. I've found Grove Snails to be very difficult to keep in captivity for any reasonable length of time for some reason. While the Common Brown Snails are extremely hardy, and will even go dormant when conditions are not ideal.

Triggering them to breed is another challenge. I haven't figure out how to do that.

Snails and slugs are also not very tolerant of dirty enclosures. They die very easily because of this. In order to keep snails alive, you've gotta keep due diligence just like with any exotic pet.

I'm only distantly aware of the fact that there may be escargot farms (snail farms) in Europe. In America, because so many people get grossed out by the thought of eating a snail as a delicacy, I'm not aware of any here, or if there are any, they're quite rare.

If there should be any snail farms out there in the US, I'm not even sure they'd be willing to open a small account for someone in need of snails on a small scale. Now, if I said I owned a French themed restaurant and would like to carry escargot on the menu, it may be a different story...