Bathing baby!!

[snailgal]

Do I need to bath the baby snails? and how important is it to give these snails a bath - I mean what would happen if they were not bathed for any reason?

Val

[pheonixx]

Val are you a member of Pauls forum... www.petsnails.co.uk
There is a post about bathing the Gals that I think I started in there..as you know I am very nervous of bathing our 4 and some people on the forum had different thoughts on this..take a look and tell me what you think..Linda
PS they do seem to enjoy it but I dont LOL.

[Correne]

Hi you two,

I don't know about how mature/large a snail should be before bathing. I do know that very small snails are very vulnerable to shell damage. I have read that some snail carers do not bath their snails at all, regardless of age/size/maturity.

I have never bathed my small reticulata in the same way I bathe my larger snails, but I spray them with tepid clean water and they seem to enjoy that.

The thread Linda mentioned is here:
petsnails.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&n=1&thread=1117019222

Paul's notes on bathing on PetSnails are here:
www.petsnails.co.uk/index.php?action=care&type=cleaning

I was so frightened the first time I tried. My best friend was with me and I thought I could do it, but one of my fulica made a squirty sound. I screamed.

Paul guided me through the whole process, and now bath-time is a total joy.

Linda, you said something the other day about bathing your children. When they are very young, it's so easy. You just get in there with them and give them 'booby'. Then at about 2 they don't want to get in. Remember Darra having a tantrum and I put her in fully clothed. She was so shocked at her mummy, and it turned out to be a huge laugh.

Now, Danny loves a bath/shower and hair and smellies so he looks good for Chelsea, his love (he is 8). Darra, nearly 11, is not in the least vain - she likes to be clean but that's it.

How relevant is the last two paragraphs? Told you to kick me if I get too loud.

[pheonixx]

LOL Correne

I can picture your face with the pumping sounding snail ;D..sometimes I think mine spit at me..the wet pets definatly do..ahhh you brought memories back of bath times with the kids its a long time since for me my youngest is 18 this year Vicky was not to keen on it either and I can still clearly remember I used to have to have a good imagination with her..it was all based around kid soup...and I had to do this everynight we laugh about it now but she loved it...I used to run a bath making it sound like a cooking recipe..and the main ingreadiant was one mucky kid..and I had to make it sound interesting and different everytime...I was glad when she decided she would bath herself LOL..Linda

[snailgal]

It seems that everyone has their own ideas about how necessary bathing actually is. Emma do you bath yours?
I tried to join Petsnails but it just will not let me in!!! kept telling me that Val is an invalid name so I tried Valerie.......it accepted this and sent an activation code, I used the code but it just kept telling me to "activate account" I tried entering the code again but it wasn't having any of it........Grrrrrrrrrr machines Paul, if you read this I would love to join your forum but it wont let me.

Incidentally...........where is the snails breathing hole?

[Emmachan]

I wash my snails in a shallow bowl of water. I use luke warm water and i hold my snail on my fingers. i then gently poor a little water over the snail and use a soft toothbrush to ease off dirt. U can see the breathing hold if u turn ur snail upside down u can see it. it u are holding ur snail upside down with the tip of its shell facing u the breathing hole is on the left. sometimes they making clicking noises when they expell air from here.
it is actually not easy to drown a snail and they wont be harmed by a bath. however u should hold the snail up right and make sure his air hole is not submersed in water. this is why i usually hold the snail on my fingers with hand in the water.

[Paul]

Hi,

I've only just seen this post. A few people have had problems logging in, but they turned out to be a case-sensitivity issue. If you use uppercase letters you must type them in when you login/activate.

Try that, if it doesn't work, email me your username and password and I'll look into it.

As for bathing, I do it, but not that often, the smaller ones get gently sprayed and cleaned that way, the older ones I sit in the bath in shallow water and splash water on them. I clean the bodies (remove any congealed slime etc) with my finger. I clean the shells with my finger and use a brush on any really difficult bits.

When I put a water dish in my tank, the snails actually flatten out to completely submerge themselves which shows me they love it. They tip it over and completely soak the tank sometimes.

My snails effectively get splashed a lot, and they love it, they also stay active for hours after. I roll waves up and down the body if you see what I mean.

I also, do the oil on the shell thing. It isn't necessary but they come up nice, and it does inhibit pests etc. It'll also protect the shell from any soil acidity. I think bath time is a good idea because it is when you really notice the snails' health. I spotted mites once during bath time, coz you get to spend time looking at them up close.

paul