DianeS - Listeria spreading, culling the rabbits

[DianeS]

The newest adventure around here is that I'm farming snails. I want to put my garden in a yard covered by hundreds of brown garden snails, so they had to go. I gathered 50 in just a few minutes, and was trying to decide the best method to do them in, when I came across a website that talked about farming them - you farm them in a plastic bin or glass aquarium, and then you have handfuls of smaller snails available year-round to use as a protein and calcium source for your chickens!

I thought it sounded great, so that's where the 50 snails went. In a large plastic bin, with soil in the bottom, some loose grass for water retention, and various salad veggies for food. Sounds easy, right? Noone mentioned poop control! LOL! I'm going to have to figure out how to remove the stringy, sticky poo that snails leave behind them. But so far, that's the only issue and everything else is going great. They're eating the salad veggies just fine, and moving all over the place. I won't have baby snails for a few more weeks, and that's when I'll be sure it's going to be a success.

I raised mealworms in Colorado, but a new place means new experiences so now I'm raising snails! Anyone else ever tried this?

 

[Denim Deb]

And here I thought you were raising them for you to eat!

I don't normally see many snails around here, so I can't help you much.

 

[pinkfox]

no snail farming for me, though it is somehting i shoudl htink about, the ducks LOVE slugs and snails!

 

[ORChick]

Where I grew up the snails were a veritable plague in my mother's garden. One of my parents' friends, a Frenchman, told my mother that he would take any snails she could gather for his dinner table, but apparently he couldn't take enough to slow the destruction, so she had to use snail bait, and then (of course) he wouldn't take them anymore. I got the neighbourhood children to collect snails in my garden one weekend - 1c per snail. I got rid of about $10 that weekend! (And I don't think that they cheated much ) But the problem was considerably lessened for the next several years.

 

[Dawn419]

We used to unintentionally farm snails in our freshwater aquariums. We'd mash the small ones on the tank glass, rocks or driftwood and the fish loved the "fresh food", bigger snails would be brought home to the chickens.

 

[DianeS]

And here I thought you were raising them for you to eat!

You know, I honestly hadn't thought much about that. But your comment made me curious, and I looked in to what's necessary to make escargot - and I learned that one of the species of snails that the French people use for their famous butter-and-garlic-escargot recipies is the common brown garden snail! I did all the research, photos and latin names and all, and it is indeed the same species that I have in the bin in the garage waiting for the chickens! The "Helix aspersa" species, in case you're curious.

So, French Escargo it is. Only for a few, I do still want them for the chickens. Did you know it takes up to two years for a snail to reach its full size? I'll have to start some more bins of snails to keep up with demand, I think. Especially if they're yummy in escargot. The fully grown ones are the ones you use in escargot, but they're also the ones that lay the eggs and I don't want to deplete my breeding stock.

Oh, the issues this has brought up! But what fun!

I got the neighbourhood children to collect snails in my garden one weekend - 1c per snail.

I can see my ad now - will pay 1 cent per live snail - posted at the elementary school down the street. I'd have kids lined up around the block to sell me the snails they collect from their gardens! Wonder if there are any restaurants that want to add escargot to their menus... my mind is spinning with possibilities.

 

[Denim Deb]

Go for it!

 

[pinkfox]

worth asking!

 

[DianeS]

My life is very random right now. So is this post.

1 - Snails poop a lot. I had no idea. But it washes off easily if you use COLD water. Warm water just makes the poop slide around.

2 - I want a cow. I can't have a cow. I would settle for a goat, but I can't have one of those either. I suppose I should be content with the 40 animals I do have, huh? The ones that give milk will come in time.

3 - Speaking of those 40 animals, I was reminded today that wearing exposed red toenail polish around chickens is a bad idea...

4 - Why won't my rabbits breed like rabbits? AAARGH!

5 - Five-week-old Cornish Cross chickens are pretty ugly.

6 - I made peanut butter cookies tonight. And because I have about 5 lbs of oatmeal in the house that nobody wants to eat, I threw a couple handfuls of that into the mix. They still taste like peanut butter cookies, only the recipie made an extra three cookies. Bonus!

7 - I'm having a random discussion on Facebook on why I don't give pity dates to neglected rivers. (So if you're a real life friend on facebook, now you know it's me. I must be the only one having that conversation, really.)

8 - My yard has too many spiders.The small, thick, fast-running kind that live in the grass. DE reduced the number from the thousands to the hundreds, but that's still too many. Ick!

I think that's all. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Denim Deb]

Glad I don't wear nail polish!