I've written this for my forum but thought I'd share here as well, people seem interested in my snails from reading my blog 
Are snails easy pets? Most people would say they are, but not many experienced snail owners agree. That's not to say they are hard to care for, but rather they aren't as easy as people think. I've seen so many people get interested in keeping snails, get them and a week later try to get rid of them because the care was not what they thought.
It does depend heavily on the habitat, size, amount and type of snails. For example, a African land snail who grows more than the size of a hand is different than a small helix snail who grows over 1 inch. Both those snails require different sizes habitats and because of the African snails size your cant keep to many in one container.
So what care do they require?
Daily misting to avoid drying out. (This means in the morning and night, but if it's hot weather u need to spray in the afternoon as well)
A comfortably spaced ventilated container. Poking a few holes in any container won't suffice, except for a short time. They need floor space, side space and roof/lid space as well as deep sand for burrowing and laying eggs. They need cage enrichment too, sticks, plants, things to climb over, under and inside, and a hideout like a plastic pot
Access to salads, fruit and veg boiled everyday in warm water to get rid of pesticides and herbicides, it takes about 10 minutes for me everyday to soak the food, rinse it and dry it EVERY day. It takes me 10 seconds to feed my hamster.
Correct nutrition, u can't just give them strawberries or one type of food. U need to give them a range of different foods. They require variety. I feed mine soaked bird pellets and other people also feed fish flakes soaked. I also feed them salads, fruit, veg, pansy and viola I grow myself.
Stable temperatures, they need temps 15-26°C to be comfortable, most snails are active between 19-23°C. This does depend on the species of snail u keep. Some snails even require heat mats and humidity which u have to maintain to have healthy snails.
The correct sand, they do eat sand as part of there diet.
Calcium sources and dusting. Every week for adults that should have calcium powder sprinkled on there food for there shell. Juveniles and babies require more
They lay eggs like all the time, and I don't mean 3 or 10 eggs, I mean up to 100 eggs. Can you handle that many snails? You will need to check the soil every day for eggs if you don't want too many snail babies.
A humane way to deal with them before the eggs developed is to freeze them and then throw them away. But if the snails u keep are native to your country u can release the babies into the wild. The eggs can hatch from 1-2 weeks.
They are really messy animals and poop there entire cage dirty. If your have see through Glass or plastic the slime dries and leave trails all over, so it can make the cage or kritter keeper not pleasant to look at. Luckily they do prefer a dirty cage than a clean one. Although u will still have to neaten it and clean it every 2-3 weeks depending on how many snails u have or how messy they are.
They do get ill if kept in the wrong conditions.
They are nocturnal and won't be much entertainment in the day
Snails deserve proper care like any other creature does. Just because you can go outside and collect some doesn't mean there life has any less value
Snails are one of my favourite pets to own, I'm in no way trying to discourage anyone from getting snails, im just making sure people understand the care they require
Edited by HamsterOfficial, 17 July 2019 - 05:49 PM.
