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Tadpoles&snails


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Hi just wondering where you think I could buy snails from? Am I to late for tadpole season? Where could I buy some. Im in lincolnshire but in a city so not much access to wildlife really.

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You may well be too late for tadpoles as these are generally about from around January! Best known suppliers are parents and grandparents etc. with ponds - they are not difficult to keep, but you do need to keep the water oxygenated and don't allow it to get too warm etc. We have never really been that successful in getting them to the froglet stage. But the children have enjoyed watching them in the tank zipping about and beginning their changes growing legs etc.

 

 

Snails - we just look for them in our gardens or in our little minibeast corner in the nursery garden we bring them into the nursery so that the children get a closer look and can discuss what they see - we put them on a large white tray with a little food - cucumber or something and misty spray the tray every now and then with water, we then put them back in the garden where we found them.

 

African land snails I think you could probably buy on E bay! These are tiny as babies but grow to be huge and grow fairly quickly over a year into large snails about as big as your hand and, I am told are easy to keep.

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GALS are very easy to keep but remember they can breed without another snail (up to 200 eggs every few weeks) which you need to consider as it is illegal to let Giant Africa Land Snails go free.

You have got me really worried now - I understand that GALS are hermaphrodites - but I also understood that they 'shoot love darts' (seriously) at each other - therefore if you only have one it can't breed.

 

I empty the 'soiled' peat from the bottom of my snails tank into my compost bin - am I going to open the lid one day and find thousands of GALS?

 

Blimey - think I need to 'get off here' and check some facts - google here I come!!!

 

Sunnyday

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Well our "Betty" keeps having babies even though her/his late husband/wife George died 18 months ago. Apparently they only need one "love dart" ever to keep reproducing. It was a huge shock the first time I saw all the tiny babies emerging!

Edited by Marion
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Breeding

 

All snails are hermaphrodites, which means that they have both male and female sex organs, so although you need two snails in order for them to breed, it doesn't matter which two. If conditions are ideal, the snails will produce nests of small, white round eggs. These should be removed very carefully, so that the adults do not disturb them, and placed in a small container containing some damp peat-free substrate, where they should hatch after about 14 days at 20-25°C. Keep an eye on your eggs, and as soon as they hatch give them some food and cuttlefish.

 

Snails can produce more than one clutch of eggs following mating. As a result, snails that have not have been in contact with other snails for some time may still produce batches of viable eggs (assuming the snail was an adult when it was in contact with other snails).

 

Achatina fulica is a tropical snail, but can survive cold conditions, even snow, by aestivating (equivalent to hibernation). Snails are hermaphroditic (both male and female), and after a single mating can produce a number of batches of fertile eggs over a period of months. This does NOT mean that they can mate with themselves, they still require a partner A. fulica lays eggs in batches of 100 to 400 with up to 1200 being laid in a year.

 

 

We separated George & Betty after finding the first batch of eggs when they were only a few months old (we wrongly thought they were too young to mate) so imagine the shock of finding baby snails emerging from the soil months after George had "departed"!

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I was given some GALS which reproduced like nobodies business, there are loads of them now apparently, (when I left I took two with me which I still have). I did give eggs or babies to parents but most feedback was that they died!! I still have my two 2 years later. I did have a few lots of eggs but nothing for at least the last 9months. The children think they are pretty cool especially the poo which of course changes colour depending on what they have eaten. Poo of course being the only topic worth talking about in our pre-school! :o

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It is quite true about the 'love darts' begin required by garden snails when they are mating. It seems that the darts have a chemical on the end to prevent the other snail rejecting the sperm. This is the sort of interesting information I needed when doing GCSE. I can probably still disect a frog but haven't been called upon to do that recently. :o

If anyone wants snails I have literally bucketfuls in my garden eating my vegetables, and I can't get rid of them, so help yourself to the snails.

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for those of you less enterprising, my nursery class made some lovely snails out of 2 sheets of rolled newspaper, masking tape, a pipe cleaner and a slap of paint. They made a great display together with some collage pictures inspired by Matisse's snail.

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Hi kristina - have you tried local nurseries/garden centres - that's assuming you have any local to you.

 

My snail came from one of my parents - one of my little boys enjoyed him so much that his grandparents bought him one for his birthday - from a garden centre in Tenterden, Kent.

 

Not sure about the ebay thing really but that's probably just me being 'over cautious'!

 

Good luck with your search

Sunnyday

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