Building the second pen

180. In the last booklet you were told that to farm snails you will need at least two pens.

Two pens needed

181 . With two pens you can move your snails from one pen to the other to get rid of any enemies that may have got in.

182. You can also move your snails to dig the ground and work the soil so that they can dig into the soil to rest and can lay their eggs easily.

183. With two pens you can move your snails from one pen to the other if the weeds and creeping grass get too thick to take away with snails in the pen.

184. You can also plant new food plants when the old ones have been eaten. When you are moving the snails, you can get rid of any of them that have not grown well.

When to build the second pen and how to build it

185. Build your second pen a little before the growing season and exactly one year after you built the first pen.

186. Begin just as you did before, by cleaning and preparing the ground (see Items 86 to 96 in the last booklet).

187. However, if you put your second pen near your first pen, be very careful when you burn the plant material not to burn your first pen or harm the snails in it.

188. For this reason it is best to leave an open space of at least 3 metres between your first and second pens.

Be very carefull when you burn the plant material

189. Now you are ready to build the second 5 x 5 metre pen and to plant the food and shelter plants (see Items 97 to 117 in the last booklet).

Putting snails in your second pen

190. When the plants in your second pen have grown big enough to provide food and shelter, you can put in the snails.

When the plants are grown, you can bring the snails

191. If the snails in your first pen have grown well, you can use some of them for your second pen. So, collect the right number of the biggest and best snails from your first pen to put in your second pen.

192. If the snails in your first pen have not grown well, you will have to begin again with new fully grown snails for your second pen.

193. Remember, with your first pen you put in 150 snails if you used the small kind and 25 snails if you used the large kind.

194. However, different snails lay different amounts of eggs. So with your second pen you may want to change the number of snails that you put in.

195. If there were too many baby snails for the food plants in your first pen, put fewer fully grown snails in your second pen.

196. If there were too few baby snails for the food plants in your first pen, put more fully grown snails in your second pen.

197. If you are not sure how many snails to use, it is best to continue to put in 150 if you use small snails and 25 if you use large snails.

25 Large snails; 150 small snails

198. Later, when you have learned more about the kind of snails that you are using and how many baby snails they have, you will be better able to judge just how many fully grown snails that you should use.

Note

Do not forget to take out all of the fully grown snails that you have put in after you see a lot of baby snails in your second pen (see Items 148 to 151 in this booklet).