Snail Farming For Beginners And How To Get Best Of It In Nigeria
According to dictionary.com, a snail is an animal (a mollusc) possessing a single shell (spiral) into which the whole body can be withdrawn. Snails are generally very nutritive animals and have a high market demand.
They tend to reproduce fast and also require little capital from the farmers.
It has many different species but three different types are mostly common in Nigerian farms:
– Archachatina Marginata (AM)
– Achatina Fulica (AF)
– Achatina Achatina (AA)
Things You Should Know About Snail Farming
– Achatina Achatina (AA) is the largest snail specie in Nigeria
– Snails are of high nutritional value and they are rich sources of protein
– An average snail can live for up to 20 years
– Snails are deaf, but they feel, smell and smell things around them
– Snails are Hermaphrodite ie. they possess both the male and female reproductive system
– Snails have the ability of crawling upside down this is because of the suction created by their slime
– Snails are mostly active in the night
– Snails produce thick slime that protect and give them the ability to crawl on sharp objects without getting hurt
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Advantages of Snail Farming
– Snail farms are easy to run and manage.
– Snail farming is cheap to start and carry on
– It is not capital intensive
– Snails are rich in protein
– It requires little man power and labour
– It can easily be combined with other types of farming
– Snails are basically harmless
– They have low mortality rate
– It requires little space or land
Benefits of Snail Farming
– Snail farming is highly lucrative
– Snails are easy to be exported
– Snail meat is reach in calcium, vitamin A, iron, magnesium and contains very low fat
– Snails are highly productive
– Snails are highly medicinal and have good traditional healing effects
Disadvantages of Snail Farming
– They are affected by cultural limitations: Some tribes forbid the eating of snails in their regions. This makes it less lucrative in the region and sometimes, only visitors eat them in such areas.
– Growth: Inasmuch as we stated above that snails have a fast growth rate, in a fully matured snail, relatively only about a 40% of the whole snail gets eaten.
– Climatic issues: Except artificial means of climatic control is adapted, snail farming is limited to the humid tropical forest zone which offers a preferable temperature (constant), fairly constant day/night rhythm, high relative humidity and (preferably) no dry season.
– Snails pose as pest in farms: Snails that escape from their farms or are abandoned by their farmers have a high risk of eating up the leaves of crops planted in the farms.
How To Start A Snail Farm At Home In Nigeria
We’ll guide you through the steps involved in starting and running a snail farm in Nigeria including the equipment involved.
Tools and Equipment Used For Snail Farming
– Rake
– Watering cans
– Feeders
– Shovel
– Tank for water
– Buckets
– Hand trowel
– Pipe or hose
– Weighing scale (digital preferably)
Processes Involved In Starting And Running A Snail Farm
– Education
This is one of the most important stages in snail farming and it’s where many people fail. It is something you should consider very well before venturing into it. You need to know the basics of starting the business, the challenges you might experience while running it, the breed type that will do best in your location and other things.
You can pick up tutorials and courses that will help you learn the basics of starting and running a snail farm. When you advance more into the business, you’ll gain more experience about it.
Do you know that snail shells can be used for making Vim? Well now you know, why not try it?
– The Soil Type and Texture
The type of soil you utilize in breeding snails play major roles in the snails’ life cycles. The calcium that the snail requires for it’s survival and for the formation of its shell. The soil type also plays an important role in the during the period of hatching and laying of the snails’ eggs. This is because of the fact that snails bury their eggs in the soil.
– Snails’ Food and Feeding
Snails mostly feed on plants like fruits and vegetables. However, in modernized farming, there are formulated feeds that are rich in calcium that have been specially produced and prepared. These feeds help the snails to grow faster than the traditional snails. Snails also feed on different varieties of crops like cabbage and lettuce, pawpaw leaves, water leave, okra leave, water melon, cucumber, pawpaw, and many more.
– How To Market Your Snails In Nigeria
In Nigeria and other African markets, the demand for snail is higher than the supply. These makes the market readily available because the snail farmers are not currently meeting the consumers’ demands. As a snail farmer, your target markets will be the market women, supermarkets, hotels, pepper soup joints, restaurants, and other outlets that utilize them both for cooking and re-selling.
– The Physical Environment
This is another important factor that should be considered while setting up a snail farm. The farm should be properly selected, chosen and situated in a predator-free environment. The site should also be tested for signs of bacteria and diseases that may be harm the snails. Make sure there are trees or plants that will shield the snails from wind and direct sunlight.
Other things you should know about setting up a site for snail farming include:
How To Select The Best Type Of Site For Snail Farming
– Snails Dislike Wind
Snail farms should be located away from the wind direction. This is because of the fact that wind aid in increasing the rate of dehydration in snails.
– Snails Prefer Average temperature And Humidity
Snails are generally cold-blooded and sensitive to changes in the humidity of the atmosphere around them. Fluctuations in the humidity can cause the snails to lose valuable growing time. Snails prefer average temperature atmospheres, atmospheres that are neither cold nor hot.
– Location of farm
The farm should not be far away from the farmers house. This is because he/she needs to monitor and supervise the snails on regular basis to know when it’s best to feed them. It’ll also help the farmer to detect pests and diseases in case of attack and protect the snails from attacks.
– Snails love Soils That Are Rich In Moisture
Snails prefer soils that are damp however, farmers should avoid lands that are prone to flooding. Rain and dew are keep the soil the damp enough for the snails to move around freely and lay their eggs. In conclusion, the ideal soil for growing snails is the loamy soils, this is because they allow water and air to penetrate the soil easily.
Snail Farming Environment – Snails are easily dehydrated, and wind increase the rate of moisture loose in snail which in turn, leads to the dryness of the animal. To prevent snails from losing water so quickly, your snaileries (the snail house) must be located in environment that is protected from wind.
A low plain, downhill site surrounded with enough trees is perfect for snail farming. You may plant plantains and bananas around your snail farm to prevent the impact of wind.
Type of Soil For Snail Farming – Snail’s major habitat is the soil, and soil contains some of the components and chemical substances that it needed to survive. However, not all soils are suitable for snail rearing. The shell of the snail is mainly calcium and it derive most of them from the soil. Snail also lay it’s eggs on the soil and drink water out of the soil.
Hence, the suitable soil for snail farming must contain these elements. Must be balanced, not waterlogged, not too dry, and must not be acidic. The most desirable soil for snail is sandy-loamy soil with low water holding capacity. Clayey soil and acidic soil must be avoided.
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Getting The Sails For Farming – To start up a snail farm, it is advisable to get snails directly from the forest instead of buying from the market after they have been exposed to sunlight and have dehydrated. This is because snails drink a lot of water, so are easily dehydrated and this stresses them out, and reduce their fertility capacity.
The intending snail farmer could pick the snails from the bush with a very simple technique; clear a little portion of land during rainy season and sprinkle spicy fruits like pineapple, pawpaw, plantain, banana etc at about 5 o’clock in the evening, when you go back there about 7pm or 8pm, you will pick up snails suitable for rearing. Repeat the procedure until you get enough quantity.
Another way could be to pick up snail eggs littered in the market place where it is sold and through a technique, check the fertility of the eggs, because some of them must have lost fertility due to the exposure to sunlight. The eggs are later put inside a container containing wet sand and covered with cocoyam leaf. Between 21 to 28 days, the eggs would hatch into baby snails. You start feeding them and gradually you raise a snail farm.”
The Snail House (Snailery) – Snaileries can vary from a patch of fence-protected ground, sheltered from the wind to a covered box if you are breeding in small scale.
For larger population of snails, you can dug a trench or make a concrete pen with soil deep of about 10 inches, and cover it with screen or wire all around to prevent the snails from escaping. Remember that snails can reproduce fast and become pests when their breeding is uncontrolled.
Snails love dark and cold places, but make sure the humidity does not drop to levels harmful to the snails. You can use fresh leaves and cloth that is regularly wet to regulate the temperature.
Also, the wire is useful in keeping away rats and snakes or other predators from eating the snails in your snail farm. But aside from these bigger predators, you should be wary about smaller ones like ants and termites. Your construction must have these predators in mind.
Snail Foods and Feeding – Snails especially Achatina mainly feeds on green leaves and fruits though they can utilize other ranges of foods. Feed your snails leaves, fruits, or even formula from the feed store. Aside from food to grow tissues, snails need calcium to grow shells.
Leaves: Cocoyam leaves, pawpaw leaves, okra leaves, cassava leaves, eggplant leaves, cabbage and lettuce leaves.
Fruits: Mango, eggplant, pawpaw, banana, tomatoes, oil palm fruits, pears. and cucumber.
Once they start growing, separate the big ones from the small ones. It take more than a year for the Achatina type to grow to harvest size. Others mature in two years.
One hundred thousand snails after a year or two sold at the rate of N50 each (highly reduced price) will give you about N5 million! Isn’t that a good investment?
Harvesting – It is not economically wise to harvest your snails before it’s maturity, it has to be matured before harvesting. To know if your snails are already matured enough, check the brim of the shell. If it is matured enough, the brim should be thicker and harder than other parts of the shell.
Do not harvest all the matured snails at once for the market. It is important to keep few for breeding and to serve as base stock for your snail farm.
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