Loach and river snail polyculture techniques: What feed do river snails eat?
Loach and river snails are two must-eat delicacies in summer. In rural areas, many river snails and loaches are wild. Because once summer arrives, farmers' fields will have many wild loaches and river snails, and at this time people will go out on summer nights to catch some and bring them back to enjoy. For city dwellers, they will go to the market to buy some fresh loaches and river snails and prepare them at home themselves.
Loach and river snail polyculture techniques
1. River snails and loaches are both famous and special aquaculture species, and in particular the farming scale of these two is constantly increasing, with people farming them all over the country, and their farming returns are also good. These two species can be polycultured in actual farming practice.
2. Loach is an omnivorous species, and its feed includes zooplankton, small crustaceans, insects, flat snails and fragments of higher plants; in artificial farming it can be fed rice bran, wheat bran, soybean cake, river snails, earthworms, silkworm pupa powder and manure, etc. River snails generally feed mostly on bottom-layer humus and fine organic debris, and under artificial farming conditions they are mainly raised by applying organic fertilizer.
3. Loach also likes to inhabit the bottom of ditches, harbors, lakes, marshes, ponds and rice fields, and when the water temperature is too high or too low it burrows into the mud. Besides breathing with its gills, loach also breathes through its skin and intestines. When the weather is muggy and oxygen in the water is low, it floats to the surface to swallow air and expels waste gas through the anus. River snails generally live in shallower rice fields, river ditches, ponds and lake branches, and when the water is too shallow or the water temperature is too low they also burrow into the mud.
What feed do farmed river snails eat
1. River snails like to inhabit water environments whose bottom mud is rich in humus, such as water bodies with lush aquatic plants including lakes, ponds, field depressions or slow-flowing river ditches, and they often feed on microorganisms and humus in the mud as well as phytoplankton in the water, tender aquatic plants, moss and so on, and they also like to eat artificial feed such as vegetables and fruits, vegetable leaves, rice bran, wheat bran, soybean powder (cake) and various animal trimmings, etc.
2. River snails are cold-tolerant but fear heat, and the suitable temperature for their life is 20°C~28°C. When the water temperature is below 10°C or above 30°C, they stop feeding and burrow into the mud or grass to avoid the cold or heat. When the water temperature exceeds 40°C, river snails are scalded to death.
3. Artificial bait. Artificial bait includes bran cake, vegetable leaves, soybean cake, wheat bran, fish meal, melon and fruit peels, duckweed, rice bran, fish offal and other animal viscera, etc. Under high-density rearing conditions, natural bait is far from enough to meet the feeding needs of river snails, so artificial feed, fish viscera and so on must be supplementarily fed. Livestock and poultry manure, rice straw and other organic fertilizers can also be used to raise river snails.
What varieties of river snails are there
1. Cipangopaludina chinensis, a common species in China. The shell height can reach 60 mm and the width 40 mm. The shell is thin but strong. It has 6 to 7 whorls. The suture is deep. It inhabits lakes, ditches, ponds and rice fields.
2. Margarya melanioides, the type species of the genus Margarya, is distributed in Dianchi Lake, Erhai Lake, Fuxian Lake, Yilong Lake and Datun Lake in Yunnan. The shell is huge, with shell height reaching 77 mm and width 47 mm. The shell is thick, tower-conical in shape, with 6 whorls, and the shell surface has spiral ridges and spine-like protrusions. It can reproduce throughout the year.
3. Sinotaia quadrata, belonging to the phylum Mollusca, is a freshwater snail endemic to China and lives in lakes and rivers with relatively clear water quality. It is distributed in Hunan and Guangdong provinces. The individual is smaller than the previous two species, with shell height generally 25 mm and width 15 mm. It has 4 whorls, the spiral part is low and squat, and the body whorl is swollen, accounting for the vast majority of the entire shell. The shell opening is large and oval. It inhabits rivers.
How to achieve high yields in river snail farming
1. River snails have strong adaptability and few diseases. As long as they avoid the poison of large amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, many ordinary water bodies in rural areas such as flat river canals, stream beaches, pits, rice fields and ponds can all be used for stocking. Keep the bottom mud thickness at 10cm-15cm, and the area size is unlimited.
2. If it is an open water body, a small amount of Azolla and water lilies etc. can be cultivated on the water surface, some long-vine melons and vegetables can be planted around the pond with trellises for shade, and bamboo tails, branches or stones, grass, etc. can be placed in the water for river snails to hide and inhabit. Organic fertilizer and propagated bait organisms provide food for river snails.
Raising some river snails and loaches appropriately is still quite good, and if your own family does not eat them, the market demand is very large. In fact, the methods for preparing loach and river snails are also relatively simple. If your own family raises them, then that is even better.