The Slimy Trail of Snails

Garden snails-we see them all the time in our gardens and backyards and inside flowerpots. They are light grey in colour with moist skin. They have a coin-sized hard shell that is usually in different shades of brown with darker stripes. Their body is fragile and is protected by the shell and a fluid inside it. Garden snails have a long lifespan. DAANYA PUROHIT tells you more.

- DAANYA PUROHIT

Creating Snail Habitats

One morning as I was watering my plants, I found a garden snail in my flowerpot. The snail must have come with the soil I had got from a gardener a few weeks ago. I quickly picked the snail out and decided to make a better home for it.

I chose a big empty fish tank to make the snail a habitat. At the base, I placed small pebbles for drainage. Then I moistened some soil and half-filled the tank. To make it more natural, I got some moss from my garden and also shifted my taro plants inside the terrarium.

Snails usually enjoy dark, damp and moist places underneath rocks, in between gaps or cracks and sometimes even under the soil. So, I placed some rocks, logs and a half-broken ceramic pot. I tried to make the terrarium as close as possible to the snail's natural habitat.

I made a feeding corner out of an old mud plate in which I kept peels of carrot and cucumber and fresh leaves of coriander and cabbage every day. I named the snail Ice.