Harvesting your snails

When to harvest your snails

199. If your snails have grown well, some of them will be big enough to harvest about one year after you have first put snails in the pen.

200. If you need any snails to put in another pen, collect them first. So, choose the right number (see Items 193 to 198 in this booklet) of the biggest and best snails.

201. Carefully put these snails into a container so that you can carry them to the other pen without hurting them.

Put snails into a container

202. Now you are ready to harvest the rest of your biggest snails. Remember, the best way to harvest is a few snails at a time when you want some to eat or to sell at the market.

203. However, harvest all of the snails by the end of the second year so that you can plant the pen in time for the next growing season.

How to harvest your snails

204. Harvesting snails is done by hand. It is often hard work to find them because they may be hiding.

Harvesting snails

205. The easiest time to find the snails is when the plants are wet, after it has rained or at night when there is dew and they are moving about or eating.

206. You can also put out some of the food that snails like and when they come to eat it, you can collect them easily.

Put out some food

207. When you are harvesting, handle your snails carefully and put them into a container such as a box or basket or a net sack. However, do not put more than 10 kilograms in a container or you may hurt them.

Put snails in a container

What to do with the snails you harvest

208. If you are going to sell the snails, you can carry them to the market in containers like the ones above. However, you must be very careful not to hurt them or break their shells.

209. Remember, snails with clean shells and well- cared- for snails will sell better at the market.

210. If you want to keep the snails for you and your family to eat later, you can store them alive in containers filled with material such as sawdust or chopped maize husks.

211. That way you can keep them for as long as six to eight weeks before you use them. The drawings below show you how to store snails this way.

1 a box is a good container to store snails in

A box

2 cover the bottom of the box with about 5 cm of sawdust or chopped maize husks

Cover the bottom of the box with sawdust

3 carefully put in a layer of snails

4 cover the snails with about 3 cm of sawdust or chopped maize husks

Cover the snails

5 continue to do this until the box is full

Note: be sure that the top layer of snails is covered