What are the treatment methods for calcium deficiency in farmed river snails?

In the process of farming river snails, the thing most feared is the invasion of disease, so the prevention and treatment of disease during farming are both very important. To achieve high yields in river snail farming, one must master certain disease prevention methods and disease prevention measures.

Causes of calcium deficiency in river snails

Feeding a single type of feed causes calcium deficiency. River snails have strong stress resistance, few diseases, a high reproduction rate, and low requirements for farming sites; in rural areas, many ditches, flooded paddy fields, and ponds can be used for stocking. If it is an open pond, azolla, duckweed, water hyacinth, and similar plants can be stocked on the water surface for shade, and bamboo poles, wooden sticks, and similar items can be inserted into the pond for river snails to perch on, so that aquatic green manure can be harvested as feed and river snails can be raised to increase income.

Symptoms of calcium deficiency in river snails

In river snails, the flesh overflows outside after the operculum contracts, or the operculum is soft. River snails mostly reproduce naturally; for artificial farming, they can be picked from paddy fields, wild rice stem fields, and muddy ditches, or bought from the market, and then live snails with light brown color, thin shells, round bodies, and blunt tails are selected as breeding snails. Generally, river snails weighing 15-25 g reach sexual maturity and can reproduce at temperatures above 15 degrees C; female snails are large and round, while male snails are small and pointed. 

River snails like to inhabit water environments whose bottom mud is rich in humus, such as lakes with lush aquatic plants, ponds, field depressions, or slow-flowing river ditches, and often feed on microorganisms and humus in the mud as well as phytoplankton, tender aquatic plants, and moss in the water. They also like artificial feed, such as vegetables and fruits, vegetable leaves, rice bran, wheat bran, soybean powder (cake), and various animal scraps.

 Feeding management for river snails  

1. Newborn snails: feeding should begin two weeks after birth; at first, egg yolk is suitable, and after 1-2 days they can be allowed to eat natural feed. When eating, they lick the feed with their radula, so when feeding solid feed, it must be soaked soft to be suitable for ingestion.  

2. Young snails: after river snails are put into the pond, start feeding green vegetables, rice bran, fish viscera, or tea seed cake, soybean cake, and similar items. Green vegetables and fish viscera should be chopped and mixed evenly with feed such as rice bran before feeding, and vegetable cake, soybean cake, and similar items should be soaked until soft so that river snails can eat them.  

3. Adult snails: the feed needs of adult snails can be divided into 4 periods in a year.  

(1) March to May is the preparation period before mating, when they begin to eat.  

(2) May to mid-August is the spawning and fattening period; appetite increases sharply in the early stage, and in the later stage, due to spawning and high temperatures, appetite is sometimes poor.  

(3) August to mid-October is preparation before hibernation; appetite gradually increases in the early stage to store nutrients and prepare for hibernation. Before entering hibernation, their food intake decreases.  

(4) When spring arrives and river snails begin to wake after hibernation, start feeding organic fertilizer one week before.  

(5) Both the spawning preparation period and the hibernation preparation period require feeding, and it is suitable to feed 2 times per week; the feeding amount can be flexibly controlled according to the feeding situation of the river snails and the water quality.  

(6) River snails are most suitable for growth within the range of 20-26 degrees C; when the water temperature is below 15 degrees or above 30 degrees, feeding is not needed.

Dietary therapeutic value of river snails  

River snails are also called tianying, field snails, and yellow snails. They are distributed in most areas of China. After the meat of the Chinese mystery snail or animals of the same genus is obtained, it is kept in clean water so that mud and sand are removed, or it is briefly boiled and then shelled, and the meat is rinsed clean for use. It has dietary therapeutic effects on diseases such as red eyes, jaundice, beriberi, and hemorrhoids, and eating river snails also has significant effects in promoting diuresis and reducing swelling and in treating body odor.  

1. Improving eyesight. River snails are rich in vitamin A, and vitamin A has the effect of regulating vision, can be used to treat many eye diseases, and can prevent night blindness and vision loss.  

2. High calcium content. As is well known, calcium is an important component that promotes human bone development and can directly affect height.  

3. River snails contain a large amount of copper, which can supplement the human body with a large amount of copper and has an important effect on the blood, central nervous system, and immune system, as well as the development and function of hair, skin, bone tissue, the brain, liver, heart, and other internal organs.  

4. The iron in river snails is suitable for the treatment of iron deficiency anemia.

During the farming process, farmers should not be nervous when encountering the invasion of disease; they should identify its cause according to its symptoms, and then prescribe the right medicine to achieve the effect of curing the disease completely. They must not blindly use drugs, which may even cause adverse effects.