Garden Snails

Cornu aspersum

Garden Snails are very well known and have a very wide distribution. Native to a broad range in Europe, they have been introduced in many places around the world, including the United States and Mexico.

Their shells can be several shades of brown, tan, and gold, and have dark brown banding. They typically reach just over 1 inch in shell diameter.

This species reaches maturity quickly, and lives 5 years in captivity on average.

Care

Diet

Grove Snails are herbivores and scavengers. In captivity, they enjoy fresh vegetables like carrots, zucchini, bell peppers, pumpkin, and spinach. Old veggies should be changed out for fresh ones every couple days. Some foods to be avoided are onions, garlic, and salted food. They should be given a source of protein once a week, this can be achieved by feeding fish food that has around 40% crude protein content.

Snails must be provided with constant access to a source of calcium. Good sources of this are cuttlebone and eggshells.

Enclosure

1 gallon of space per adult snail is our recommended minimum, though they greatly enjoy having more space.

Inside the enclosure, items including leaf litter, artificial foliage, terracotta pots, cork bark make good decorations for the snails to climb on and explore. Live plants are often not recommended, as the snails will eat the leaves and likely kill any plants added.

Provide at least 3 inches of coco fiber or organic topsoil substrate. They will dig into the substrate to lay their eggs. Substrate also helps to hold moisture in an enclosure. Their enclosure should be misted at regular intervals to maintain humidity. If the enclosure seems to dry out quickly, covering some of the ventilation with plastic wrap can help.

Snails poop a lot! We recommend adding a clean up crew of springtails. Isopods are not recommended, as they may disturb and chew on snails. If you want to add isopods in with snails, white dwarf isopods would be the best option.

Social

Like many other land snails, gardens are somewhat social. Though they can be kept alone, we have observed that they are more active, have better appetites when housed with at least one buddy.

Crushing Eggs

This is absolutely necessary step in keeping snails. Snails, including garden snails, are hermaphrodites. Though typically reproducing through mating, garden snails are capable of producing offspring without a mate.

Every week, Dig through the soil to search for eggs that may have been laid. Eggs are small, round, and off-white in appearance. If you find eggs you can dispose of them either by crushing, or freezing them. Failure to do this will result in too many baby snails!

If you acquire your grove snails from us, they are siblings from the same clutch. We highly discourage breeding these pairs to each other, in order to preserve the genetics of the captive-bred snail population.

Written by Fern 2/13/24

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