Management Methods and Technical Key Points for Snail Farming
Snails can be seen everywhere in rural farmland. Many people catch them everywhere just to eat them, and they are also a famous late-night snack in China. The daily demand for snails is very large, but snails are relatively small and troublesome to catch, so a large farming area has formed. The prospects for snail farming are relatively good, but farming snails is rather troublesome, and there are also many examples of farming failure. In fact, it is all because of poor management. So how should snails be managed during farming? Let's take a look below!
1. Farming environment
The farming environment for snails is relatively simple, because snails have strong adaptability. They can grow normally as long as the farming site is set up in a place free of pesticides and pollution. The farming site can be water bodies such as rice fields and ponds, but there must be enough mud, because snails like to live in soil. If they are farmed in a pond, some aquatic plants such as water lilies can be placed on the water surface, and some vining vegetables can be planted around it. This can not only provide enough natural feed for the snails, but also provide appropriate shade, lower the water temperature, and prevent snails from suffering heat damage.
2. Feeding management
When farming snails, it is necessary to ensure enough nutrient-rich water and apply fertilizer regularly. Snail farming is just like planting, requiring a large amount of fertilizer to ensure growth. Under artificial farming conditions, a large amount of bait needs to be put in, but snails have very miscellaneous feeding habits and very low nutritional requirements, so some powdery feed such as rice bran can meet the needs of snail growth. Then, according to weather changes and the feeding situation of the snails, reasonably control the frequency of bait placement, and the weight of the snails determines the amount of bait placed. When the temperature exceeds the range of 15-30 degrees, you can place less or even no bait.
3. Daily management
Make good prevention and control preparations for the farming water body, avoid pesticides flowing into the water body or any pollution, and pay attention to the harm caused by weather to snails, such as birds and ducks. Natural enemies will prey on snails, causing a decline in snail yield. The weeds around the pond should be cleaned up thoroughly. When dealing with weeds, you must “pull up the weeds and remove the roots” to avoid regrowth. Keep the pond water level fluctuation small, try to control it at about 30cm, and the fluctuation range must not exceed 3cm. Ensure that the water temperature is within the growth range of snails and that there is enough dissolved oxygen in the water. And in order to maintain water quality, the water should be changed regularly, and good overwintering management for snails should be carried out.
4. Harvesting and transportation
Snail farming is continuous. After one year of rearing, basically the snails put in at the initial stage have reached market specifications. We should harvest according to the principle of “catch the large and keep the small.” Keep the snails that have not yet grown up in the pond to continue growing, and do not catch all the female snails, so as to prepare for future breeding snails. When catching snails, choose a suitable temperature for catching. The temperature must not be too low or too high. During transportation, be careful to avoid damaging the snails, and containers such as wooden buckets can be used to hold them. Also maintain a certain water level, and do not let the snails be exposed to direct sunlight.
The above is a brief introduction to the management methods for farming snails. Although snails have strong adaptability, they are not easy to manage. Without a correct management method, the survival rate of snails will be greatly affected. Everyone should pay special attention to the invasion of natural enemies of snails, because in the farming process, the greatest threat to snails is natural enemies. If the natural enemies of snails are not managed well, in severe cases it can cause all the snails to die. This article is for reference only, and I hope it can be helpful to everyone.