Choosing your snails

123. All of the snails that you choose for your pen must be of the same kind.

All of the snails that you farm must be the same kind

124. You may have found one of the kinds of snails shown on pages 8 to 11 in the last booklet living in your area. You may also have found a different kind of snail.

125. Now you must learn to choose the beat of the kinds of snails that you have found. When you first begin you will need fully grown snails.

126. Remember, that all snails are both male and female and all snails lay eggs. So, when you are looking for snails, you can choose any one that is fully grown.

127. You can tell that a snail is fully grown because it has a lip on the mouth of its shell. The drawings below show two fully grown snails with lips.

Snails which fill and which does not fill their cells

128. Look at the drawings again. Notice that although both snails are fully grown, one of them fills its shell and one of them does not.

129. The snail that does not fill its shell may be sick or it may have lost its water because of dry weather. This snail may not grow well.

130. Choose only snails that fill their shells. Snails that fill their shells will usually grow well.

131. Choose snails that have good, strong shells. Strong shells protect snails from their enemies, and snails with strong shells sell better at the market.

132. Choose the largest of the fully grown snails that you can find from the kind of snail that you are going to farm.

Choose the largest snails

133. The larger snails of any kind of snail will be better and healthier and lay more eggs than a snail that is smaller.

134. In addition, the eggs of large, healthy snails hatch better and the baby snails grow bigger and faster.

135. Later, when you have more experience in choosing snails, you will learn just how large a fully grown snail should be. You will also learn the different colours of the kind of snail that you are farming.

136. Then you can choose snails that are the same size and colour that you want your baby snails to be.

Note

As you collect your snails, handle them very gently and put them carefully into a container such as a basket so that you can carry them to the pen without hurting them.

Handle your snails carefully