Whom the city dwellers get now as pets! Quiet and generally unpretentious giant Achatina snails have become very popular recently. The maintenance and care of these dumb creatures is quite simple, no more complicated than after a turtle. What do you need to know for a beginner who decides to breed shellfish? Sellers of pet stores often can not clearly explain to the buyer all the subtleties of care for Achatina. Here you will find tips on feeding and maintaining these beauties from the Black Continent.
Choose our pet
Giant African snails, which are bred as pets in Europe and Russia, are considered scary and gluttonous pests in their homeland that can destroy the root crop of sugarcane and other agricultural crops. Scientists attribute the land gastropod mollusk to the large family Archachatinidae. It includes several genera and about sixty species. Representatives of the genus Arkhakhatina have a blunt, rounded crown of the shell, and are considered more primitive in comparison with Achatina. They are also sold in pet stores, especially Archachatina marginata, whose house can be up to twelve centimeters in diameter. African Achatina is distinguished from its relative by a pointed and elongated crown of the shell. She also has a sociable character.
What are Achatina
But inside this genus there are many species. If you're looking for size, get Achatina achatina from West Africa - the largest snail. The giant Achatina in the wild builds up a shell up to thirty-seven centimeters in length, and the weight of the mollusk can be 450 grams. In captivity, they are slightly smaller, but they look no less impressive. The most prolific is considered Achatina fulica. She, by the way, is the most unpretentious. He eats everything, feels great in an ordinary city apartment. But these creatures are unsociable and slow.
Achatina reticulates from East Africa, on the contrary, are very mobile. We can say that these mollusks are curious, sociable, quick-witted. Their shells, covered with a dotted or striped pattern, can reach 20 cm in diameter. The breeders are most appreciated by albino reticules, they are smaller, but insanely beautiful. Achatina iredalei, or lemon achatina, is interesting in that it is viviparous. A snail brings in one litter up to 25 babies. Its carapace is light yellow in color, rather small; it is only five centimeters in an adult.
Does the care and maintenance of the pet change from the choice of the type of Achatina? In fact, all these African snails are relatives, and close. Therefore, they all have almost the same requirements for food, temperature and humidity. Some like a wetter environment, others a dry one. Someone burrows into the ground during the day and creeps out in the evening only at night, while representatives of other species trustfully climb into the palm of their hands. But, by and large, the basic methods of care and feeding for all types of Achatina are the same. In choosing a pet, be guided only by your aesthetic feelings. Let its bright and unusual coloring please your eye and increase your mood!
Terrarium
A snail is not a crocodile or even a python, so a house for her can be the most ordinary. It may be a glass aquarium, but not filled with water, of course. It can also be a container made of transparent or translucent plastic, a plexiglass terrarium. You should take care of enough space for your pet, the capacity should be at least five liters for one snail. If you decide to breed three or four achatines at once, their maintenance requires a 20-liter aquarium or box. And since mollusks are not fish, they can arbitrarily leave the place allocated for them and crawl around the apartment. To prevent this from happening, cover the terrarium with a lid in which make a sufficient number of holes for free air circulation.
We equip the house
On the bare bottom of an aquarium or a container of a snail, Achatina will feel uncomfortable, stop growing, begin to wither. That is why soil is needed where nurseries could bury. Ideally, such a litter can serve as an orchid or coconut substrate. For the well-being of adults, it is necessary to fill the soil with five to seven centimeters, but young animals should not be allowed to dig so hard. Small clues may suffocate in too tight a cover. You can use the Begonia substrate (sold at flower shops) or compost without fertilizers.
Desired litter
Do not pour peat and loam, after some time you will watch your soiled pets through a glass that is no less worn out in the mud. Sand is good because it encourages snails to lay eggs. But Achatina, the care and maintenance of which are otherwise very simple, can spread grains of sand throughout the terrarium and scratch each other's glass and shells. In general, here it is necessary to empirically find the “golden mean”. The substrate should not be completely organic, as fruit flies can fly in the compost, which will fly throughout the apartment. Knowledgeable water managers advise creating a litter from a mixture of coarse loose sand and non-acidic soil.
Water treatments
Achatina snails love to splash, so do not forget to install a bath in the terrarium, into which pour fresh room-temperature water. If you have young hatched, make sure that the bath was small enough. In general, these African snails move well under water, but a small individual can accidentally choke. The bath should stand firmly at the bottom, so that if some Achatina wants to tear the litter under it, the water does not spill.
Aesthetic design
A beautiful diamond needs a decent setting, as the saying goes. But what if Achatina are such precious stones? The care and maintenance of these handsome men is simply unthinkable without the aesthetic design of the terrarium. Non-rotting pieces of wood, moss, terracotta shards will only emphasize the sophistication of African snails. Plants will not only look spectacular in the terrarium, but also saturate it with oxygen, and at the same time diversify the diet of your pets. The most optimal neighbors for Achatina will be fern and ivy.
Temperature mode
Giant snails are inhabitants of the hot tropics. Therefore, the temperature in the terrarium should range from +20 to + 28 Celsius. Do not put a container with snails near the battery, this leads to overdrying of the substrate. Direct sunlight is also undesirable, in this case the snails are waiting for an undesirable temperature contrast. If your home is colder in winter, then use heating lamps, as for keeping reptiles, to maintain an optimal climate in the terrarium. Achatina are more or less indifferent to the light, they do not need to extend the "day", as for orchids. But it is important to take the light source outside the container so that the snails do not even think of crawling through the lamps.
Humidity
These people from the equatorial jungle adore a humid environment. Therefore, you need to spray the litter and walls of the terrarium once or twice a day with spray water. The relative humidity inside the box should vary from 75 to 85 percent depending on the type of your achatina. A snail albopict (in appearance resembles a reticulate) generally needs 90% moisture. The optimal moisturizing regimen should also be sought empirically. Spraying the terrarium should be without excessive fanaticism, as you dilute the swamp and dirt. If you see that most snails sit on the walls and tend to climb higher, then the environment is too wet for them. If they burrow into the ground even in the evening, clogged with caps, then the terrarium is too dry.
How to feed Achatina
This item excites many novice snail lovers. There is no need to be afraid, because Akhatins perfectly eat our “domestic” vegetables and fruits. Unlike other exotics, they can easily live without papaya, sprouts of bamboo, fresh eucalyptus leaves and other things. Most breeders identify three products that adore Achatina. These are salad leaves, fresh cucumber and apple. However, do not limit them only to these products. For the health and longevity of snails, their menu should be varied. Give them also carrots and cabbage leaves. Achatina potatoes are not very fond of, except boiled. In the summer, treat your snails with a variety of berries and fruits. However, do not give young fruit soft fruits. There were cases when young snails were completely buried in a banana and suffocated there. Achatina will appreciate tomatoes, spinach, mushrooms, legumes, zucchini, as well as melon and watermelon. But what snails cannot do is spicy, fried, smoked, sweet.
Mineral supplements
Calcium is an important component that Achatina needs extremely. The care and maintenance of snails provides for regular feeding with food chalk. In addition to it, you can provide them with the necessary "building material" for the shell in the form of a wiped egg shell, sepia, shell rock, gammarus, cottage cheese (without salt and other food additives). Sometimes give your pets calcium cereal (a mixture of cereals and minerals). Do not forget that in the wild, Achatina do not disdain carrion. Therefore, occasionally you can give them mashed meat, bone meal, boiled eggs, minced meat. If the snail does not get enough calcium, its shell is thinned. And therefore, its internal organs, which are attached to the inner side of the shell, become vulnerable.
Breeding
Achatina domestic snails are extremely prolific. In addition, they are hermaphrodites and can bear offspring, regardless of the presence of a heterosexual partner. If you do not want a new offspring, just wash the eggs (they look like chicken, only in miniature) with water. But if you want to breed snail offspring, you should be careful with cleaning the terrarium. It should be cleaned so as not to change the air humidity and not damage the masonry. So that newborn Achatina do not suffocate in the loose soil of the litter, you need to keep them on lettuce or cabbage leaves.
Baby food should be treated with special responsibility. To grow a strong shell faster, give the young calcium gruel. Grated carrot is very useful for him. Achatina become sexually mature at the age of nine months, but their instinct of reproduction should be restrained until one and a half years. Just make the substrate layer in the terrarium less than three centimeters. One snail lays two or three hundred at a time, and the number of clutches can reach up to four per year. Do not let unwanted snail out in the summer. Firstly, they will die during the first night cold snap, and secondly, Achatina are an extremely invasive parasite. Great Britain even passed a law prohibiting the release of Achatina into the wild. What can we say about countries where many agricultural areas are covered with vineyards!
Diseases and Snail Care
The most common problem breeders face is shell injuries. Very often, crawling along the lid of the terrarium, the snail falls off and falls down. Sometimes the landing is very unsuccessful and leads to a chip or crack of the shell. Do not panic right away. If the soft body does not fall out or is given out quite a bit, the matter is fixable. Just grease the chip with an antiseptic. The rest will be done by a strong snail organism. Soon the wound healing process will start. Maybe the carapace will not be so beautiful, but the pet is alive. For the duration of therapy, move the wounded achatina into a separate box, since snails are very fond of rubbing shells against each other.
You should especially consider how careful it should be for such delicate mollusks as Achatina, content. Photos of these snails in the palm of the host are very popular. But do not often abuse the sociability of these creatures and pick them up. If you still want to hold the pet, you need to do this very carefully. Dampen the clam leg with water, put your fingers under it. With your other hand, at the same time, hold the snail by its heavy shell. To prevent infection of Achatina with microparasites, it is necessary to wash the terrarium at least once a month and remove the missing products (feed residues) from it.