Giant African Land Snails make great pets! They do! Honestly. I have had mine for about one year now so I thought I would share my tips on how I care for them.
Firstly, I do know that GALS are pests!! make sure that it is legal to keep them where you live. They are pretty hardy and can aclimatise to their environment. You don't want to be responsible for introducing a pest who can eat (and I mean eat!) vegitation and breed like maniacs to an area of delicate flora and fauna!
We initially got the GALS for my son who has a fascination for anything creepy crawly to stop him from bringing home garden snails and trying to house them in my tupperware containers!
Do you research. There are lots of pages about by people who own GALS that have many useful tips on keeping them. You need to know that you are going to be dedicated to feeding and watering them like any other pet and meeting their needs, and bear in mind thay can live 6+ years so you can't get bored with them!
You need to prepare them a home. Ours live in a tank 40 x 30 x 30cm which is probably the smallest two adult snails could live in comfortably. They like to climb and there has to be enough room for a good layer of peat for them to bury in.
You can buy lots of types of tank. Ours is a plastic vivarium from a local pet store. These are good because they are pretty cheap, they have plenty of ventilation and are light so easy to move to clean. Snails like light so it is important to make sure the sides are see through!
When you have chosen your tank, you need to prepare it. NEVER clean it with household cleaners as the snails absorb the chemicals through their "foot" (the slimy bit they slither on!). I just use hot water and elbow grease!
Snails like to bury themselves so a good couple of inches of substrate is essential. Peat can be used, orbark, but I use potting compost from the local garden centre. It is cheap and readily available. You MUST make sure it is free from pesticides though as these will kill your snails. Put a couple of inches in the bottom of the tank and use a plant sprayer (new so it has not contained any chemicals) to dampen the soil as the snails like a warm damp atmosphere.
Decorate your tank to make it look more homely. You can get wood or bark to give your snails something to climb on or bury under but make sure you boil it first to get any "nasties" off it. Rocks are not a good idea incase the snails go for a climb on the roof and end up falling and chipping their shells. We have a plastic flower pot in ours that they seem to enjoy hiding in.
To make it look a little more homely, we have a fake plant in ours. One we bought from an aquarium intended for a fish tank. A real one of course would have been eaten immediately!
Snails need to be kept fairly warm. During the summer in England ours do pretty well in the living room without any extra heat, and would do ok at room temperature in a centrally heated house during the winter, but we are not in the house all the time so it is not always heated. I bought a little heat mat, again from the reptile section of a local pet store which provides the snails with a warm spot to snuggle in.
Lastly, calcium is very important for the snails to keep their shells nice and healthy. Cuttle fish are cheap and easy to come by from a pet store. If you keep one in the tank eventually you will notice that it becomes rasped away as the snails scrape at it. Sometimes you can even hear them! True! When I have not been able to obtain a cuttle fish, I have also put eggshell in the tank and the snails have crunched on that!
Now you have your tank, with fresh damp peat, some decoration, a heat mat, and a clean water spray. You are ready for your new pets!
As already mentioned, snails like the damp so you need to spray them lightly once or twice a day with the water spray. If you keep the environment nice and damp you will not need to have a dish of water in the tank (they could drown in it). They will drink the moisture off the side of the tank. It is quite interesting to watch them do this. You can actually see their mouths opening and the muscles along the bottom of their foot rippling as they climb!
They will also get moisture from their food. Old food needs to be removed every day and fresh given. By far my snails fave is cucumber, but they will eat lettuce, tomato, apple slices, peach, melon and cabbage leaves. They will try and eat pretty much anything! Even bread! You should avoid citrus fruit because it is too acidic, and pasta because it swells. (whoever thought of trying a snail on pasta!) They are partial to a drop (and I mean a drop, or they will get tipsy and fall off the roof!) of beer which I sometimes put in one of the empy eggshells!
If you do not wish to be a grandparent to several hundred snails, you need to look our for eggs. Snails are hermaprodite and while they can't fertilise themselves, they can fertilise each other so BOTH your snails can (and probably will) lay two or three hundred eggs in one go and five or six times a year! The snails eggs look like little clumps of polystyrene balls and are clearly visible, although often buried in the substrate. From all the info I have read on the internet, the best and most humane way to prevent all these eggs from hatching is to remove them from the tank and place in a freezer bag. Freeze them for 48 hours and the dispose of them. DO NOT just dump them in the rubbish bin. They may hatch and eat all your cabbages!
You can handle your snails if you do so carefully. We have one who likes to be handled. He always comes out of his shell if he is sitting on your hand.Our other snail is more shy and takes a lot of coaxing with cucumber before she will venture out. Told you they have different personalities! Firstly, you must wash your hands and rinse well to make sure you have to chemicals or soap on them. Then gently pick them up. DON'T pull them off the side of the tank by their shells.You know how much it hurts when someone pulls your hair! I find it easier f my hands are wet and I slide them onto my fingers from underneath. Their tongues are quite rough and you can feel them "licking" you, but they don't bite! They are actually not as slimy as you think either!. Sometimes I hold mine under the shower and wash the compost off their shells. They seem to like this and always come out. I suppose it is a bit like rain! Once you have finished handling them, you must again wash your hands thoroughly.
Lastly, cleaning! If you are careful about removing old food, this need only be done every other week. I give the snails to the kids for their petting session, then empty the old compost out. With hot, plain water, I wash the sides, bottom and lid of the tank. Sometimes it is easier to rub the slime off first before it gets wet as it flakes off whereas when wet, it sticks! I also wash the flower pot and rinse the fake plant. I then put in a good layer of fresh compost and replace the ornaments, give the tank good spray of water, and some fresh food, and they are ready to return. This is a good time to check thoroughly for eggs, but it is a good idea to check more frequently as they hatch in a couple of weeks!
I hope this has shown anyone interested in these funny creatures that they are cheap, easy and fun to look after as long as you are a responsible pet owner and do it well. Enjoy your GALS!
