baby news

Remember our snails Sheldon and Essie? Well they had babies!

Here's how the story goes in case you don't remember. For Letter S week Ariana and I found 2 LARGE snails in the woods by our house and made them a terrarium and kept them as pets for a while. It was great fun and we learned about them and she loved watching and holding them. 

Before our trip to the states we let the snails go back where we found them. Oh, did I forget to mention that while we had them we saw them mating? Well, we did and we researched how long it takes before the snails lay the eggs and we thought we were safe. Guess again. 

There had been a 24 hour period where we thought one of the snails had escaped but it turned out that she had just been hiding/laying eggs somewhere in the terrarium. Thanks mama.

Our house sat empty for a few weeks while Ariana and I were in Florida and Rich was in Washington for training and then visiting us in Florida. I say empty but baby snails were silently taking over the terrarium and waiting for our return.

When Ariana and I returned home a month later I saw a speck on the wall of the terrarium and went to investigate. Is that a tiny shell? Wait, is that another. Oh-my-GOD-there-are-babies-in-there.

So far, I've counted 37. 

THIRTY SEVEN BABY SNAILS!

How do you care for baby snails?

It's actually easy. We mist their terrarium a few times a day and give them cut up vegetables to eat.

We thought their favorite was zuchinni until we discovered them devouring some cucumber one night.

They sleep most of the day - like most babies - and don't really get active until night.

Aww he's got a little bit of zucchini on his mouth!

Here is one of the babies on a quarter to show the size. And that's Ariana's little 2 year old finger.

 Teeny tiny.

As a reminder here is a photo of the mama snail - over 3 inches long!

So, what's our plan?

Well so far some of them have doubled in size - piggies. We've enjoyed having the babies in our house. What can I say, we're animal lovers, even if they are slimy. We're going to slowly release them back into the woods a few at a time where hopefully they will live out their lives in the brush by the little creek and grow big like their parents. We've debated keeping 1 because snails are hermaphrodites and keeping 2 would mean more babies in our future and we're not ready for that yet!

xo's

Cat