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ruby138

Snail rescue society

ruby138
18 years ago

What do you do with snails when they are so cute with their little antennae sticking out? If I find them tucked into the shells, I just cut them in half or smash them. But I can't do that if I've seen their face.

So I walk them down the street to the bad neighbors and tuck them into their fortnight lilies.

Is this wrong? What do you do?

Comments (88)

  • bella_trix
    18 years ago

    When I first started gardening in Brisbane, I, too, thought snails were too cute to squish. This was before they decimated my lettuce and bean seedlings. I'm not so kind now. Back then, I collected all my snails in a bucket and took them down to our small industrial park. I dumped them on their neatly manicured lawns and bushes. I'm sure the industrial centers for Bebe and Flax love me.

    I can also vouch for the pet duck and resident possum method. My neighbor has a duck that LOVES snails. I've invited her over. At my first house, we never had a snail problem, but we did have a large population of possums

    Bellatrix

  • JXBrown (Sunset 24, N San Diego County)
    18 years ago

    When I had hens the little French ecoterrorists got turned into eggs. Peck, snap, crunch ... aaahhh. I think that I read that snails are high in omega-3s, so they make better eggs, anyway. Now that I have a smaller yard, I'm making do with Sluggo and the mid-street pitch.

    My mom walks down the street crunching them. Gross. After a rain, she sometimes carries a walking stick so that she can smash more of them as she goes. Eeewww. When they had a smaller yard, my dad put boards up along the bottom of the fence and attached copper tape all the way around the yard which worked very well.

    P.S. I love all things French with just this one exception and as long as someone else does the preparation, I'm more than happy to eat the curly little molluscs too.

  • Freesia577
    18 years ago

    LOL at this thread - yeah, they are kinda cute. I throw 'em in the green waste can. Figure they've got something to eat until they go to that great compost bin in the sky, and there's a sense of cosmic karma in picturing them being converted into something to feed to the plants. (And I do use the iron phosphate bait as well)

  • Saljean
    18 years ago

    And here I find myself totally surprised that I seem to be alone in my use of a very ordinary kitchen device that works instantly: my garbage disposer!

    I just collect them on something and quickly run to the kitchen sink and ... rinse... grind... grind... grind. Though I do sometimes simply smash them.

  • NicoleH
    18 years ago

    I feed 'em to my box turtle. He LOVES 'em. If I have a lot, some are saved for the turtle and the others get a salt scrub.

  • kathi_mdgd
    18 years ago

    If i'm in the front yard i throw them into the street.In the backyard i dump them into a bucket of salt.
    Kathi

  • jtaylor48735
    18 years ago

    I'd just squish them with my bare feet like all bugs. Why pay for bricks, beer,and sprays when your own two feet work even better? See my url for my full opinion.

    Here is a link that might be useful: squishing bugs barefoot

  • Tessyt
    18 years ago

    Yuck, yuck, yuck. Yes, the French introduced those big, fat snails to CA for escargot. So, they are not a native specie. I believe a few slugs are native, but I don't know which is which. I know the slugs adore beer and love to get intoxicated cause I have intoxicated literally hundreds that drowned in their own hedioism or is it hediesm? Can you believe they love beer so much they die for it? Wow!

    Yes, both lizards and oppossums love escargot, almost as much as the French. Personally, they are highly repulsive to me. Meaning, the snails for escargot. How can anyone enjoy slime. Yuck! The snail shells are marvelous calcium for both lizards and oppossums. Is it oppossum or opossum or what?

    If I find a plant in distress because of the slimy boogers, I toss white sponge rock around the plant. Lots of it. The snails and slugs get confused in the rough, sharp sponge rocks and leave the plants alone. Other than that, I toss them [the snails that is] down into the canyon, far from my plants.

    Yep, the French wanted escargots so much, they brought the slimy little boogers to the golden state. I just lost my appetite. This thread is going to help me lose some weight. Ughhhhhh. My better half actually loves escargots. You can remain confident, he'll have to hunt them for himself, slime, beer and all. Yuck and thanks.

  • coronabarb
    18 years ago

    "...my garbage disposer!"

    Snails don't gum up the works? Why go to all the trouble of bringing them in...I'd just stomp 'em in the yard. Something about having them in the sink grosses me out!

  • saxophone
    18 years ago


    Snails don't gum up the works? Why go to all the trouble of bringing them in...I'd just stomp 'em in the yard. Something about having them in the sink grosses me out!

    I guess that rules out putting them in a blender. Bwahahahaha!

  • snailsquisher34
    17 years ago

    Well I think its funny squishing snails, just stepp on them crunch crunch ha ha.

  • napapen
    17 years ago

    If you toss a snail to the neighbor or in the street and crack their shell, they can heal and crawl back. I just did an article about snails and in my research discovered that they all lay eggs 4 to 6 times a year and 80 at a time. At the minimum that is 320 more snails a year. I don't take a chance.
    REMEMBER THE ONLY GOOD SNAIL IS THE ONE ON YOUR PLATE OR UNDER YOUR BOOT!!!

    Penny

  • jenn
    17 years ago

    LOL! How did I miss this until now!

    Snails, cute???? Fortunately I rarely spot them in our garden. I wonder why?? I supposed I'd do the same thing I do with the big ugly white grubs with the red eyes (BLECH!) -- toss them into a wide-open area for bird food.

  • dirtykneesinca
    17 years ago

    I toss em over the fence into the alley for cars to crunch, or put em in the green bin for recycling. I think they must cook in there with the lid shut, especially in the summertime. And sometimes its just crunch with a brick. Then the ants eat them.

  • macfairman
    17 years ago

    I like seeing their 'faces' and showing my son what they do if you poke an antennae.

    THEN I pitch them into the street!

    I have had just amazing success with iron phosphate bait. I started super early this year and I make sure to toss some into the hedge and other areas where I know they hide. I have had very little damage. I feel this is something I'll have to do every year forever. It sure beats peeking under plants with a flashlight at 8PM at night though (I admire those of you who do, but I just can't :)

    CJ

  • awoodwaring
    17 years ago

    heh funny post..just lurking from the swimming pool site...

    I give the snails to my 3 yr old daughter. She LOVES them to death (uh, that was literal)!! She will take them out of their shell to oh-so-delicately bath them and then puts them to bed in a bucket for a day of 2. haha

  • chaud111
    17 years ago

    I go snail hunting with my 3 yr old niece, and she loves stepping on them. This is what yells out loud before stepping on them, "you bad snail eating my Aunty's flowers, I step on you until death", or I give them to my chickens when she's not around.

  • bluestarrgallery
    17 years ago

    I just happened upon this thread and it reminded me of when I used to live in Foresthill. We had banana slugs - they are a creature that is really huge and slimy - but... I just learned by doing a search "It is a decomposer, which means it chews up leaves, and animal droppings and other dead plant material and recycles it into soil. One of their favorite foods seems to be mushrooms. In the process of eating, they also spread seeds and spores." Farther down on the link listed it says their slime is some of the best glue and scientists can't figure out how to reproduce it. I never knew slugs were beneficial - you learn something every day. Check out the link.

    Linda

    Here is a link that might be useful: Banana Slugs

  • kstotz
    17 years ago

    I found a novel way to deal with these garden pests:
    I eat them.
    The California garden snail, (Helix aspersa Muller) "petit gris" as the french call it, is a much sought after delicacy! Low in fat, high in protein and cultivated for consumption for many years....
    I have started to develop a cottage industry here in my backyard, selling clean escargot to local restaurants.
    My garden has never been happier!
    If you live anywhere in the Oakland hills, I'd be happy to come and rid your garden of these "pests"!

  • Gingers_Garden
    17 years ago

    I will ditto what Penny said: If you squish them and toss 'em back among the plants they can heal. I've seen it. Snails with shells that look like they were shattered and then mended like broken bones. So I don't squish them and leave them in the yard anymore. Furthermore, freshly killed snails attract ants as quickly as a chunk of watermelon will and I don't want to encourage the ant populations to expand.

    Earlier in the spring I encountered so many snails and slugs I had to carry a ziplock baggie with me as I pruned and cleaned up in the garden. Every morning I'd fill up a sandwich sized baggie that then went in the trash can.

    Because I was preparing to have our 25th wedding anniversary party in the back yard on May 20 I was especially determined to protect my plants. I started baiting with Sluggo in March and repeated it in April and early May. With Sluggo the snails eat the bait and then crawl out of sight to die. I did not want my yard littered with dead snail shells everywhere so Sluggo was my choice. But I noticed the slugs were living at the base of each leaf of my daylilies and they just slimed their way up the leaf to feed at night and then slimed back down to hide in the day. They were avoiding the bait I had sprinkled on the ground. So I literally dusted every daylily with the powdered methaldehyde and left it there for a month. That really cut down on the visible leaf damage. Just before the party I hosed the powder off the leaves.

    Back about 10 years ago I had three ducks and was hard pressed to find any snails or slugs while the ducks were in residence. Those I did find I would feed to the ducks who gobbled them down like I gobble Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

    Reading the other postings in this thread about stomping, squishing, hurling, lobbing, salting, and drowning snails makes me feel 'normal'. Certainly my neighbors don't think I am when they see me prowling my front yard with a flashlight at 10 PM!

  • socal23
    17 years ago

    Thankfully, we have only decollate snails (introduced before I purchased the house) and a few rather diminutive slugs. The only problem I ever have is with the newly emerging foliage of bulbs planted after the rainy season has begun. The backyard, composed of a lawn and some trees is resistant to snail and slug damage and the front yard isn't irrigated. Bulbs planted before the start of the rainy season are able to gain some size before the newly hatched slugs pose a significant threat; no adult slugs make it through the summer and must immigrate from elsewhere.

    If I take a walk at night after it has rained, I crush any and all snails I see on my way. This began because a particularly severely infested yard I often walk by; as there was no way to avoid stepping on the things short of walking in the middle of the street, I decided I might as well be deliberate about it.

    Ryan

  • CA Kate z9
    17 years ago

    I have to laugh that this thread keeps reappearing --- and I hurriedly read the next installment..... I guess they're our common foe.

    Yesterday I found a snail that kstotz would want. This Snail was as big as a golf ball. I was remembering the article I jokingly sent to a friend a number of years ago about how to turn these critters into pre-Escargot.

  • roula
    17 years ago

    I don't salt them because I'm afraid the salt will negatively affect the soil. Instead, I spray them with a mixture of ammonia and water. They melt beautifully and I read somewhere, maybe on Gardenweb, that the ammonia contains nitrogen which is good for the soil.

  • tuesdayschild
    17 years ago

    westelle, I have to agree -- I love picking up this thread because it flat out makes me laugh -- we all go crazy with these things and reading other people's responses is not only funny but reassuring-- we're not all nuts. We're just nuts about these snail things!!!! -- but Dis's entry of regarding flying snails as far as possible made me howl thinking of my own "pest control" problem a few years ago. Not snails. Rats.

    I had a ferocious hunter cat who was just a rat-hunting machine in the west hills of SF and our neighbors to the west and down the hill had a 1/2 acre back yard that was just as God intended it. Never pruned, never planted, a wilderness untouched in the 15 years that I'd lived there. Needless to say, this is where my hunter cat found most of her prey and sported a lot of the day. As cats will do, her catches were delivered to me for approval and my usual routine was to take said catch, thank her for it and then, while she wasn't looking, whale it over the back fence back into the neighbor's jungle -- knowing that it would be gone by morning (a skunk, a racoon, a coyote, a fill-in-the-blank would have eaten it happily). I figured it was all part of the cycle and that we didn't need to involve the landfill in these exchanges via the garbage can.

    One late afternoon, the Huntress brought me her offering while I was digging out the carrot bed in the lower forty of the back yard. Plop. Purr. Isn't it lovely? I assured her that it was and that I was grateful for the offering. She left. I stood up, grabbed the rat and whaled it, as accustomed, over the fence into the "wilderness". At the very moment that it left my hand to become airborne, I heard a childish voice pipe up from that same wilderness, saying, "No! We're going to be pirates now!"

    In that instant, my blood ran to ice as I realized that I had just launched a dead rat and it was airborne, towards a child, in fact a group of children and.......ohmigod! what the heck were they doing in that mess of a yard??? and eeek !!! Rat in midflight, I raced to the back fence and looked over, only to see, to my horror, that someone had (overnight???) cleared the wilderness and there were children playing in in the mowed grasses and cleared field!! Aiiiii! Thud! Luckily, the ill-fated rat landed in an area far from their games and was unobserved and inaccessible (due to a really. really steep slope) from their play area (and was also gone the next am when I checked). I did not have to explain to either panicked children or irate parents about flying dead rats. I sagged against the dilapidated fence with relief.

    I learned caution......

  • jacsgarden
    17 years ago

    If you can find someone that has box turtles, they would be thrilled. I just found a box turtle in my yard and he loves those snails! So nutritious. If the turtle is a little unsure of it, just squish it so it can't get away and the turtle gets the idea real quick.

  • CA Kate z9
    17 years ago

    Oh, tuesday.. Too funny!

  • coronabarb
    17 years ago

    LOL, tuesday! Love the story!

    "One of their favorite foods seems to be mushrooms..."

    UGH, banana slugs! Where I lived in WA state, their favorite food seemed to be baby zucchini...it would be gone in one night. I HATED those ugly things!

    My dogs will eagerly eat fruit beetle grubs...I wish they would eat snails too...

    Corona~Barb

  • rogerv_gw
    17 years ago

    I just put them into the green recycle container. After the recycle is collected, the container is empty, no snails. So I can imagine them feasting in there until they get collected, when they go to the green landfill area. I view the green landfill as snail heaven, and like to imagine that they do as well (*smile*).

    I also use Sluggo to save my plants when necessary (*smile*).

    -Roger

  • tuesdayschild
    17 years ago

    westelle, coronabarb, so glad to have brightened your days -- yes, that memory will stay with me 'til my dotage........

    jacsgarden -- I'm very interested in your comment about box turtles -- I had considered ducks and geese -- having been told they _love_ snails and slugs and knowing that their duck/goose poop would be good for the yard as a whole, but in west SF knew they'd be "sitting ducks" (forgive the...) for the raccoons and that I wouldn't be able to protect them (nor my seedlings from them), so gave up the idea. Box turtles were not ok up there as I was told the winter temps were too low and wet for their hibernation. Now that I'm down here in SoCal, I'm reconsidering the turtle option.

    Do you know if they're ok doing a hibernation in the SoCal coast area? I'm in La Jolla. I'd gladly forgo the Sluggo for a couple of turtles if I could be sure they'd be happy campers and not too cold in winter. And I'm guessing they wouldn't be as destructive to seedlings/sprouts as I'm told the ducks and geese are.

  • flyingdutchman
    17 years ago

    kstotz : "I found a novel way to deal with these garden pests:
    I eat them.
    The California garden snail, (Helix aspersa Muller) 'petit gris' ... Low in fat, high in protein and cultivated for consumption for many years....
    If you live anywhere in the Oakland hills, I'd be happy to come and rid your garden of these 'pests'!"

    True, snails are great food and very healthy too, like fish is. They should be tried once in your life. I'm from the Netherlands and I also eat them. They needn't be rubbery, just like squid doesn't need to be, if well cooked.
    However, if you or your neighbour uses snail bait, it's best you leave them alone. If one has eaten snail bait, it's not too bad, because you never eat snails immediately, but after a week or so. The ones that has eaten bait, will be dead after this time.
    Pre-preperation of [all sorts of] snails :
    Adults have a lip at the end of the shell, collect these.
    Wash them all then put them in a large container and feed them with cabbage, carrots etc. and cornmeal. You can add herbs like thyme and rosemary to pre-marinate/flavour them. The old Romans fed their snails with cornmeal, thyme and wine. The French feed them also with nettles.
    After at least 4 day's, but mostly a week, wash them well and put them in a basket, in any case something with holes and put them in a cool, shady and ventilated place. Do not feed them anymore. The next day, (dry) clean the basket and give the snails a little spray with water [this will activate them to empty their intestines]. The 4th day, they are ready to be cooked. Some let them starve for a week [you can check the basket every day for fresh excrements, if none are there, they are ready; you can (dry) clean the basket, but do not wash the snails anymore - de-hydration !].
    Before you cook them, put them somewhere for a copple of hours where the temperature is about 8c/46F. Fill a pan with enough water, cook the water on a high fire and put the snails in when cooking. Let them cook for about 5 to 10 minutes, upto the point you can remove them from their shells with a pin. Remove all snails from their shells, [optionally] remove the intestines [curly part] and the tail end, wash them and put them for a quarter of an hour in salt water. Wash them well again. Now you will have to make an exellent court boullion. Cook them for about 40/60/90 minutes if escargot species is 'petit gris', brown garden snail, or three hours for Roman snails. Let them cool in the bouillon for about 20 minutes. Now they are ready for further preparation or, for example, freezing.
    Make something else then Escargots a la Bourgogne [by putting garlic butter and snails in their shells and then in the oven for about 8 minutes], like adding them to a [bound] [wild] mushroom - or [bright] shitaki soup, or add them to your fried eggs [with bacon, vegetables] and fresh herbs.

    Igor - Questions/recipes : vrije [at]mail . com

  • flyingdutchman
    17 years ago

    P.S. Always remove dead snails [if you wash them before the phase you are going to starve them, they will get very alive; before you put them into 8c/46F, you can check if they move (a little) in their shell].

    A Spanish recipe to compensate mij P.S.
    The mentionned common garden snail is a banded, bright colored, rather small snail. You can replace them with the brown garden snail, Helix aspersa, prepared as above. If you use common garden snails, do not cook them as long as 'petit gris' and you can leave them in their shells [nice to see, but you and your guests must appreciate the colorfull shells]; see my remark at ORIGINAL.

    I left the translated poetic 'Spanish language' as intact as far as I could.

    VALENCIAN PAELLA
    (For 4 persons)

    INGREDIENTS:

    800 grams of chicken
    550 grams of rabbit
    1 or 2 dozen of "vaquetas" (common garden snails, Cepaea nemoralis, Cepaea hortensis, small Otala punctata or - Helix aspersa)
    400 grams of "garrofó" (butter beans or yellow beans)
    200 grams of "tavella" (large white beans)
    300 grams of "ferraura" (haricot beans, haricot's verde)
    1 deciliter and a half of olive oil
    1 bare and cut clove of garlic
    1 mature tomato peeled without seeds and crushed fine equivalent to 125 grams approximately
    1 spoonful of paprika (10 grams)
    400 grams of rice
    Saffron in fibers
    Salt

    We will cut the chicken and the rabbit in 8 regular pieces, salt them, set the oil to warm in the "paella pan" and fry slightly very well and slowly the pieces of chicken and rabbit.

    First frie the meat, then give the vegetable an equal frie.
    Next add the garlic, the paprika and the tomato.

    [ORIGINAL : Then put on 2 liters of water and put the "vaquetas" in, exposed previously to the sun. This is allowed to cook during 10 minutes. REMARK : If you use common garden snails, first let them eat corn for a week and then starve them for 2/3 days in a ventilated basket. This is the same as 'exposed previously to the sun'. You can eat the entire flesh [intestines] of the snails, like so with the 'petit gris'/brown garden snail, but not of the Roman snails; if you use prepared snails, pass this phase]

    Next put all ingredients on the rice which is distributed on the whole surface of the "paella pan", which [the rice] has the fibers saffron on top and this is allowed to cook on a very lively fire during 8 minutes, dimm the fire in order to cook on a slow fire during another 8 minutes until it eliminates the water, allowing it to rest on the mild fire during 4 more minutes, in order to which it takes the point of "socarrat" [toast lightly].

    Eat well ... Igor - the Netherlands

  • ruby138
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Warning, warning, for August: the cooler weather has brought a snail baby boom. I am finding tons of tiny (soft-shelled!) snails beneath all my plants. I'm too near-sighted to see the cute antennae, and so I've been squishing them with my finger tips. Easy!!

    Snail mystery: a very strange woman at Trader Joe's the other day had a snail attached to her sweater. When the kindly clerk pointed it out, the woman glared at her and tucked the snail into her purse. Pet?? Lunch??

  • ruby138
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Oh, and Igor, thank you for the recipe. Now I know what to serve for my mother in law's next visit!!

  • jesipunk
    17 years ago

    I've always tried to ignore them, I live upstairs and they never make it to my patio so my plants are safe. but they get stepped on, whether on purpose or not, by neighbors (well- my kids and I are smart enough to look where we are going!) and it looks awful on the sidewalk- AND THEN- all the other snails come and swarm the pile of slime and shell- WHY?? I highly doubt this is any sort of memorial service for the dead snail. AND THEN- the little pile of cannibals gets stepped on as well- this is probably just as traumatizing for the person who stepped on them as it is for the snails.
    as a good neighbor, I make an effort to spare others the trauma and guilt associated with accidentally killing one of mother nature's poor, defenseless creatures. To avoid the nasty marks that a smashed snail leaves on the sidewalk I created a game called "SNOCCER". with a swift sideways kick they go flying into the side of the garage. this wall is only about 4-5 feet away so they hit it hard and die quickly. the stucco disguises any slime that may have been left by the splattered snail. If I had a golf club or hockey stick it would have been called "snolf" or "snockey".

  • itssilly
    16 years ago

    I never kill the snails. There are plenty of other ways to protect your plants; detterents such as copper and salt, and decoys such as leftover veggies or egg shells. Remember that your plants have it in them to survive without human help in the wild and they do it without killing their tormentors.
    Snails, if you watch them, can also find wire fencing a challenge if it's such a size that their shells wont' fit through it.
    Always play to your strengths- compassion is a strength. You'll find a way.

  • red_sea_me
    16 years ago

    either into the hot alley after a high trip into the air or a very close look at my sole.

    supposedly you can make escargot from slugs too.

    -Ethan

  • caavonldy
    16 years ago

    I find stomping snails to be highly theraputic. I get rid of all my fustration. I feel very relaxed after going out after I water and "crunch, crunch" , all my anger and stress is gone.

    Donna in hot Orland

  • napapen
    16 years ago

    Since a blender was mentioned, I will tell you a recipe by one person doing bonsai to make his moss stay on a tree. One blender (not in the kitchen) a bunch of snails, turn on blender and instant glue! I can tell the story but not actually do the grinding.

    Penny

  • cpicard71_hotmail_com
    15 years ago

    anyone willing to ship some snails to me? I'm looking to raise some for home use (hubby is french) I can't seem to get them anywhere for a decent price.

  • tuesdayschild
    15 years ago

    Got a great new update for you on this one. Night before last, I went out around 9 pm to do some pest control and when I opened the front door (thus whanging on the motion detector front door light) I surprised a teenage 'possum who was evidently snacking on the snails in the front yard. It reared up on its hind legs, flung its front paws up in front of it, closed its eyes, and showed me a nose, entirely encased in a snail shell. It looked just like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with that brown blob covering his nose. I guess s/he'd been working on it and it flipped over the schnozz. It was outrageously funny looking. I never saw which way the possum ran -- I was laughing too hard.

  • kristincarol
    15 years ago

    I find that three of four trips into the garden in the early morning with a gallon bucket with 1/4 cup of salt and a cup of water or so will get rid of all the snails there for the season. I tend to let the snails sit in the God-awful bucket until the rains start and then pour it on the compost heap. With the rainfall amounts we get here there is little danger of over-salting my land. At least, I have noticed no ill effects in the 20 years I have been doing this.

    I will admit it is not as satisfying as the crunch or seeing them sailing over the fence, but it works and sometimes there is the added thrill of the squeeling sound they make when contacting the salt water. Oh yeah, this is WAR.

  • hosenemesis
    15 years ago

    Opossums can't hold a candle to brown roof rats. Used to pluck buckets and buckets, and since the rats appeared, not a one. So although I am not a member of the Snail Rescue Society, I am in the Rat Fan Club.
    Renee

  • irish_zinnia
    15 years ago

    When I have the time, I place them carefully in my green recycling can and let them spend their few remaining days enjoying green clippings and intimate trysts until trash day. But like most everyone else, I usually resort to hurling them as far as I can onto the asphalt, and then only the strong survive.....

  • VeggieIrishGirl
    10 years ago

    I found this site trying to find a way to save a poor little snail I accidentally stepped on. I'm so upset and then I come here and see comments where you sick b!tches are cutting snails out of their shell, stepping on them on purpose, throwing them against walls and throwing them in the street and more. What the hell is wrong with you sick people?!!!?!??!!!

    How can you have absolutely no respect for life?! I'm horrified! You're torturing an innocent life. It doesn't matter if they're the biggest or the smallest of animals/insects. It's a life you twisted psychopaths! I can't begin to understand how so many of you could be so friggin' cruel. I don't know how any of you can look at yourselves much less sleep soundly at night after doing what you've done to these innocent lives.

    If you all feel comfortable enough to share something so awful, I can't imagine the things you've done you're too ashamed to admit. You're horrible excuses for human beings and you lack any compassion or respect for life. Shame on you all!!

    Before you even try to turn it around on me and/or call me a hypocrite because animals die for my food, you should know, I don't eat meat. I'm a strict vegan who doesn't consume any animal products I found this site trying to find a way to save a poor little snail I accidentally stepped on. I'm so upset and then I come here and see comments where you sick b!tches are cutting snails out of their shell, stepping on them on purpose, throwing them against walls and throwing them in the street and more. What the hell is wrong with you sick people?!!!?!??!!!

    How can you have absolutely no respect for life?! I'm horrified! You're torturing an innocent life. It doesn't matter if they're the biggest or the smallest of animals/insects. It's a life you twisted psychopaths! I can't begin to understand how so many of you could be so friggin' cruel. I don't know how any of you can look at yourselves much less sleep soundly at night after doing what you've done to these innocent lives.

    If you all feel comfortable enough to share something so awful, I can't imagine the things you've done you're too ashamed to admit. You're horrible excuses for human beings and you lack any compassion or respect for life. I feel complete and utter disgust for all of you who are doing such horrible things to these innocent snails. Shame on you all!!

    Before you even try to turn it around on me and/or call me a hypocrite because animals die for my food, you should know, I don't eat meat. I'm a strict vegan who doesn't consume any animal products because unlike any of you; I do have the upmost respect for life and I refuse to let anything suffer on my behave.

    Shame! Shame! SHAME! ON! YOU! ALL!!!!

  • gyr_falcon
    10 years ago

    With all of the injustices in the world, it boggles my mind sometimes where folks choose to plant their feet and take a stand.

    VeggieIrishGirl, and any other rescue society information seekers, check the link below for some injured snail care tips.
    Or use this version, if you prefer: http://www.petsnails.co.uk/problems/rescuing.html

    Here is a link that might be useful: Rescuing Snails that have been stepped on

  • sluginator
    10 years ago

    You can paint numbers on them with nail polish and then see how far you can transport them and they still find their way back.

    This experiment was first done by a gardener a couple of years ago and it shocked the scientific community. Everyone assumed that their brains were too small to possess a homing instinct.

    Since we don't know how they navigate, you could do things to try to find out such as move big landmarks, put down a barrier of smelly garlic or onion juice, etc.

  • swakyaby
    10 years ago

    I had a pair of roadrunners that loved to eat snails. When I lived in Orange county, these birds would hang out on my backyard fence, pick up unknown objects in the grassy shrubs of my hillside and run up the slope and vanish to the other side. One day I walked up the slope and made a surprising discovery on the other side. There were hundreds and hundreds of smashed empty snail shells where these roadrunners would apparently smash the snails against a concrete drainage path.

    I love roadrunners.

  • uncle molewacker z9b Danville CA (E.SF Bay)
    10 years ago

    There are some great posts in this thread that i could not possibly improve upon or top. However, i can say that my moles are rather aerodynamic and fly high and far.

  • Fascist_Nation
    10 years ago

    I don't have any chickens to toss them to, but the birds know me and come a flapping when I start tossing them upon the pavement. This time of year I imagine they steam in the shell pretty quick.

  • Min3 South S.F. Bay CA
    10 years ago

    Because: I think moles are critters that you could just relocate instead of killing since they only tunnel after grubs and worms and don't hurt flowers and shrubs.
    Do you have a neighbor you don't particularly like who has a big damp lawn? That would be a win/win for you and each of the moles. Min