Snail size question

[SelectGex]

Today I found a few garden snails. They ranged in size and after googling I think they are striped mauve and black snails.

I put the smaller ones I collected right in front of my borneo females. They snapped them in within the minute. I also collected some adults to put in my planted terrariums with hopes that they would breed in the tank and produce more babies to serve as food.

To my surprise one of my females took off after a medium sized adult snail and gobbled it down. It was about 1/2 inch in size. I am bit worried it is going to impact her. The other female tried to attack one of the adults but backed off after noticing it may be too big.

I'm a bit worried.. These WC adults should be used to not being able to eat adult snails, right? Do you think there is a chance that eating a snail too large could cause impaction?

Thanks so much for your input..

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Sure it could, like any feeder that's too large. Not much you can do now except wait and see what happens. I wouldn't worry to much about it though. I'd be more worried about parasites from feeding wild snails.

 

[SelectGex]

Thanks for the quick reply, Ethan. I was hoping you'd be around tonight.

I understand those risks. Would F1 snails be much safer? If so, I may pull the adults and only feed F1s. Not sure how the parasites are passed or how you'd rid them from WC snails.

Thanks!

 

[Luperosaurus]

I think that nothing bad will happen. I have feed my geckos by snails many years and never has any troubles. Yes it is little risk to get parasites, but positive effect after feeding is much bigger then negative. Captive breed snails have less number of vitamins and biological active elements, that reason why I use allways wild cought .

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

I don't know, I've read of high incidents of parasites like Liver Flukes coming from wc snails. By captive breeding them, you may diminish some of the nutritional value, but you also decrease your chance at passing on these parasites to your animals. As always, it's a trade off that one has to weigh for themselves.

If you do want to try captive breeding them, there are several good threads in the feeder section if you dig around.

 

[drskipjack]

You should also do the detox period just in case of any chemicals used in your yard/neighborhood. just google it.