FEEDING
09.10.2024
A good and varied diet is one of the main components when it comes to having a healthy pet and the same applies to our African giant snails. Therefore, I have chosen to make an extra developed post about this, but if you are looking for a more comprehensive explanation, this can be found under the easy-to-read guide.
African giant snails are herbivores, which means that their food mainly consists of vegetables. In addition to their plant-based diet, they always need to have free access to calcium in some form, for example in the form of calcium powder, cuttlefish shells or calcium cakes. See the section on calcium for more information on different ways to feed your snail with this.
Food that tends to be particularly popular is cucumber and salad, which can almost be seen as the snails' candy. It does not contain much nutrition but is good with water and is seen as a real delicacy. Personally, I always give my cucumbers or salad at the weekend so that they also get some Saturday treats. As previously mentioned, varied food is important. Below is an example of how you could lay out the snail's food for a week to create a varied diet.
Monday: Fruit
Tuesday: Vegetables
Wednesday: One type of vegetable + porridge
Thursday: Vegetables
Friday: Fruit Saturday: Cucumber, salad and flowers/dandelion leaves if in season.
Sunday: Cucumber
This is what a week's feeding could look like, but set it up in a way that suits you and that your snail appreciates. If you are a new snail owner, you will notice that a snail's individual taste is as varied as a person's and you will quickly learn what your snail appreciates and does not.
Snail porridge is something I regularly try to vary solid food with and it can be made through several different recipes. These can also be found here on the web under the porridge as food tab. I also highlight further down which flowers you can feed with. If you stay within the plant kingdom, there are actually only three components that you as a snail owner should be careful not to ingest, and these are salt, food with a high content of oxalic acid and one of the four types of grain barley, oats, wheat and rye. The absolute most dangerous is the salt that dries out the snail's body, which always needs to be moist.
Oxalic acid is an acid found in foods such as tomatoes, onions, avocados and Swiss chard. This acid has a negative effect on calcium absorption and inhibits the snail's ability to absorb calcium. Wheat, barley, oats and rye have a chemical structure that is difficult and harmful for snails to break down. These are the reasons why the above three ingredients should be completely excluded or largely avoided. Tomato is an example of something you can give the snail once in a while, but not more often than that. Onions are directly dangerous as the oxalic acid content is even higher there.
Below is a list of suitable, less suitable and harmful food choices for African giant snails. Appropriate
• Cucumber
•Salad
•Mango
• Peach
• Nectarine
•Plum
•Peas
•Carrot
•Calendula
•Dandelions/Dandelion leaves
•Cabbage
• Red cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Apple
• Arugula
• Pepper
• Rutabaga
• Cress
• Shamrock
•Zucchini
• Strawberries
• Raspberry
•Banana
•Melon
Less suitable
•Kiwi
• Papaya
• Pear
• Beets
•Parsley
• Spinach
• Orange
• Clementine
• Tomato
Harmful
• Onion
• Swiss
• Chard
• Rhubarb
• Salt
• Wheat, Grain, Oats & Rye
• Beans
Phytin is another substance that inhibits calcium absorption and it is found, among other things, in beans and cereals, which is the reason why these should be avoided.
I have been asked several times how often a snail should be fed, and my straight answer is that there is no correct one. Snails can hibernate for up to six months and then eat nothing, while others are real food wrecks that will start eating any plants in the nest if they are not given vegetables every day. My personal measure is that I put a portion in each nest where the size is based on the amount of snails. That food is then left there until it is eaten or is no longer fresh.
If I notice that it is not eaten repeatedly, I try to reduce the amount of food, have a longer time span between meals and to vary a little extra so that they are treated to something really tasty. You learn over and over again how your own snail works, what portions it wants and how often they should be given. It is also not uncommon for snails to only eat lime for periods, for example to build up the shell extra, so no worries as long as your snail eats calcium in any case!