Snails.....as a pet??

[Katymac]

Hi we have been offered some large african snails to have as a pet

The need soil in a fishtank and eat apple & cucumber

Is this feasible?
Does anyone keep snails?
How long do they live?
Will I kill them like I do the fish?

we had to look after the nursery ones in the holidays and rather shamefully, managed to kill one off

they are pretty easy to look after but unfortunately, they lay loads and loads of eggs and you have to clean out the soil all the time and dispose of the eggs otherwise they hatch really quickly into lots of little land snails (then you have a big problem!).

I think the one that died, died from old age because it was enormous. WHen you clean out the cage, you can hold the snails or let them sit on a bed of lettuce and cucumber. The kids loved them but I must admit, I was delighted to give them back at the end of the holidays!

My DD would LOVE a snail or slug as a pet

She's odd though

How often do you have to clean out the soil?

Do you throw it away oor in the compost? - I don't want giant snails in my veggie beds

And I thought I was nuts considering a pig.

Oh, I had African land snails as a kid - used to freak my mates out by getting them to crawl up and down my arms ...loved 'em. (We did have pretty muich every animal in the world in our house at some point, from boa constrictors to quails...)

Seem to remember them being pretty indestructable. No idea how long they lived - quite a while I think. But yes, you do need to clean them out pretty regularly. THINK we just put it in the compost - think that'd be ok in the winter, but wonder why we never got over-ran with snails in the summer... or maybe my mum's garden just hid snails easily...!!

every couple of days - I put them in a black bag and stamped on them (the eggs) because one time I didn't do that and they started hatching!

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