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notbob notbob is offline
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Default Ever raise snails?

On 2009-12-26, Mark Thorson > wrote:

> It looked easy. According to what I've read,
> snails need dirt to eat, in addition to food
> and water. The dirt is removed when they are
> put on their purge diet.


This is a pretty old subject. Ever since a French restaurateur came
to CA and discovered the same species of snail they go gaga over in
France is the same as the one CA gardeners consider the most
relentless pest in the state. It became all the rage and there were
even local escargot clubs that put out a howto pamphlets on how to go
about it. This all back in the early 80s and after a mad dash to
become prolific snail herders, the fad finally lost popularity and
slowed to a crawl. (snork)

Basically, you let 'em munch whatever you got, ground hugging ivy's
being a fave, then feed 'em corn meal for a few days to purge. Keep
flat boards (1x8,12s, etc) suspended an inch or less off the ground
giving the snails a place to rest on the underside, which these are
then easily picked up and scraped for harvesting. Other than those
basics, I didn't get into it. There must be a tons of specifics on
it out there somewhere.

nb