Achatina snails are becoming more and more popular as pets and are conquering
more and more hearts. However, even such an unpretentious animal needs care and attention, and the content of Achatina has its own characteristics.
Having decided to purchase the Achatina snail as a pet, the first thing you should take care of is providing the snail with a spacious and well-equipped home. This must be done in advance and, although the snail will feel good for the first time both in a plastic container and in a three-liter bottle, it is still better to purchase a terrarium at a pet store. When choosing a dwelling, it should be borne in mind that the growth rate of the snail will also depend on its size: the larger the container for keeping the animal, the larger the adult Achatina will reach.
A very important point is the choice of soil for the Achatina snail. Here, one should take into account the fact that snails eat the soil, passing it through themselves and extracting nutrients from the soil. Thus, soil purchased from a flower shop and enriched with fertilizers can lead to painful death of the animal. Also, it is categorically impossible to use sawdust, sand, stones as soil for terratium, as these fillers can seriously injure the snail. The most popular soil for snails among Achatina owners is coconut substrate, sometimes mixed with peat. You can also use regular moss from a deciduous forest. Moss must be cleaned of debris, small insects, filled with cold water and left for 24 hours.
In the terrarium, it is necessary to provide good ventilation: an excess of fresh air leads to overdrying of the soil, a lack - to the fact that it becomes too humid in the terrarium, and this is a favorable environment for the development of bacteria and fungi, including molds.
Also, the Achatina snail needs a balanced diet. The peculiarity of these animals is that they will not eat bad food, the cucumber stuffed with nitrates will most likely remain intact. Food should be varied, of good quality and always fresh. Achatina love apples, cucumbers, carrots, pumpkin, leafy vegetables, milk, cottage cheese, kefir or yogurt. Useful porridge made from oatmeal in water or milk, of course, not hot. In general, all products that you offer Achatina should be at room temperature, not hot or cold.
There is a small list of products that are categorically
- First of all, this is salt and all artificially salted food. Salt will kill the animal.
- You cannot treat your pet with food from your table, various smoked meats and marinades, fried, stewed or boiled dishes.
- Citrus fruits are also banned.
It is important to ensure that the snail is getting enough calcium, especially during the period of active growth. The shell of the snail grows by about 0.5 cm per week, so it is important to take care to provide your pet with this important macronutrient. It is quite simple to do this: the shell of raw, thoroughly washed chicken eggs is peeled from the inner film, dried and ground into powder using a conventional coffee grinder. You can also place a piece of white chalk or pet store-bought mineral sepia (cuttlefish shell) for birds in your terrarium.
you can not put it, it is enough to spray the walls of the terrarium with cold boiled water from a spray bottle once a day - this procedure will give water to the snail, which will lick the drops of water from the glass walls, and maintain the optimal level of humidity in the Achatina's dwelling.
Achatina snails require: you can take the animal by the narrowest part of the shell, since the wide one is soft during the growth period and can be easily damaged. In no case should an animal that is adhering to the surface of an object be pulled by the shell, since it is possible to seriously, even fatally, injure a snail.
Surprisingly, it is very easy to understand the needs of such an unusual silent and unhurried animal. The snail closed in its shell - a lack of moisture in the terrarium, and if, on the contrary, the Achatina hangs on the wall of the dwelling - an excess of moisture. Climbs onto the cover of the terrarium and hangs on it - most likely, the animal is under stress. When Akhatina is scared or hurt, she makes a loud hissing-hissing sound, similar to a cry. Such sounds should never be ignored. If the snail is not getting enough protein or is simply hungry, it may not hurt, but it will bite sensitively. The mouth of the snail, called the radula, is equipped with about 25,000 sharp teeth that look like a grater.
By the way, this special structure of the Achatina oral cavity has found wide application in modern cosmetology: milk is applied to the skin of the face cleared of cosmetics and impurities. The snail, smelling it, works as a radula, simultaneously polishing the skin, thus removing its upper layer along with skin imperfections in the form of small scars, age spots and age spots, freckles. At the same time, mucus, which contains collagen, has a healing effect on rashes of various etiologies, small scratches, cracks in the skin, as well as a rejuvenating effect. After the very first procedures, fine wrinkles are smoothed out, and subsequently, deeper wrinkles become less noticeable.
It is believed that Achatina snails have a short memory and are not too smart. However, these cute animals soon get used to the owner, recognize his hands and do not hide when trying to pet the snail. When unfamiliar hands approach them, the Achatins try to immediately hide in their shell.
