Hmmm,

[SNAILFAN]

Sometimes I wonder why some pet store people treat their snails so badly? I mean,their only taxonomily different than vertebrates.
And I can see how people like dogs and other pets a lot,their furry and cuddely,
but how different from fish are snails?(I know their taxonomily different,but I mean as pets)

[brittmvun]

Well here at good ol' college the only pets we can have are fish and i have snails and they are alowd. They said to count them as fish. But anyway i like my snails MUCH better than i do my fish! They are the neatest lil guys (and girls)

[SnailerD]

The reason the pet stores treat the snails badly (in my opinion) is usually just ignorance. They have people there who really don't care about anything but a paycheck. They think the snails are just slimy slugs with shells and figure they are fine, just eating left-over fish food. I have become very angry with people at stores, both workers and customers. Overhearing people talk about "oh, I hardly ever feed my bettas, they are easy to care for," and so-forth and the same sort-of thing about the snails - misinformation. Also, many pet places think apple snails are like others - hermaphrodites and will reproduce wildly, so tell people not to buy them. They put the snails in feeder goldfish tanks and then the snails have no antenna left. That makes me SO mad . You just want to slap them and say, how would you like not being fed, or cared-for, except when some fool thought about it? I made one pet store person feed their snails. He said they could not take food off the shelf, without a supervisor's okay. I bought some algae tabs and took them over to him and demanded he feed the snails. He gave them some and within a short-period of time, several snails dropped down and swarmed the tablet. It made me feel better. I have stopped and given people buying snails some advice, on feeding and care for them, in hopes it will help. The pet stores don't have a clue, sometimes (in my area, anyway). I guess it is up to people like ourselves, to try to make a difference. Talk to the store owners, the workers and anybody you see buying a snail. Maybe we can make a difference, little by little. That is my hope. If we can improve life for any snails, it will have been worthwhile! Keep on snailing.

[ILOVESNAILS]

i saw a shop assistant throw a snail into a tank without no care wot so ever i thought it was awful [color=darkblue][/color]that poor snail !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[SnailerD]

Wretched pet store people! I wish they would get more personnel who knew a thing, or gave a darn about the creatures they were in charge of! If I weren't so busy taking care of my OWN snails/fish - maybe I would go apply! (Joke)! Still, as I have said before - it's up to us Snail Fans to try to educate the non-informed! Keep on snailing!

[SnailerD]

I was in the local store tonight - nearly cried when I saw the baby snails for sale in their tanks. They were covered in slime/algae and just didn't look good. Some were the size of my larger baby snails. It seems like they are a bit small to be selling. I guess not. I felt so badly for them. There were a lot of dead ones and sickly looking ones. I saw one that was semi-decent, but was afraid to get it, because it could have been a carrier of something that would take-out my healthy snails (even after a quarantine). I don't need any more snails, either (because I don't have the room - it's not for lack of interest). I sure wanted to save them all, though. It just seems so wrong and makes me mad, for them to have creatures for sale in such poor condition. An age-old gripe/battle, I suppose. I just had to vent. I felt terrible, leaving them there - but unfortunately, I guess we can't save them all. I can only hope that some caring individual saves some of them and joins the snail group and learns how to properly take care of them. There, I will try to put a positive spin on an ugly situation.

[firefly]

HI. I have been reading this site with interest. I'm glad I found it, and my first snails in a long time are acutally going out in the mail early next week. YAY!!

I work in a pet store and we do feed our snails. We have sinking algae wafers we feed to all our algae eaters (pleco's, cae's, snails etc.) and we also regularly feed zucchini. We only cary black and gold mystery snails (brigs I think), and they are in with some fish, but not ones that bother them. I can't remember off the top of my head which ones are with them, but they're a small peaceful fish that isn't bothersome to the snails. We do put some salt in all our water, but not enough to harm the snails. We also don't put it directly in the tanks, but in our main filter area so it is fully disolved before it reaches the snails. Our snails don't get much calcium, but they don't stay with us long, our water is quite hard naturally, and I always tell customers they need lots of calcium for a healthy shell.

I too am saddened by all the pet stores that don't take proper care of their animals (snails or otherwise) and would love to 'rescue' all the poor things. However, this can create problems. If the stores who mistreat animals actually sell them, they will buy more (to again mistreat) and continue to make a nice profit. It certainly costs less not to feed the snails, and if people still buy them, it works out financially. Buying from these stores only encourages the maltreatment of animals. As much as you want to rescue the poor things, the store would hurt more if all their animals died (because of poor care) and no one bought the barely alive ones to save. I think it is better to identify these negative stores and stop shopping there all together (so that you won't be tempted to rescue an animal, morally I have a problem with leaving a sick animal to die in an unsafe environment once I've seen it...), and so the store will feel the loss of business. And, don't assume that all big chains are bad. I work for a big chain, and we are a clean respectable store. All our stores should be like ours, but I know that there are some in our chain that are probably not. If you find a big chain that is not doing well by the animals, report this to corporate. They will take care of it. We have a hotline we can call if we notice animal abuse or neglect in our store (or another store in our chain). There will be no reprecussions for us (at least not official, but of course those being reprimanded might not like it if they found out who ratted them out) and corporate will take care of the problem. Also boycotting just the bad stores of a chain can work too. If an individual store in a chain is not making a profit or doing well, it will be on the to be closed list unless it can fix the problem. Corporate doesn't just bail out failing stores cause others are thriving!


On another note, we are having a snail pest problem in ou tanks with snails that came in on live plants (or from somewhere--these guys lay eggs in the gravel and such, hard to control). We pick them out by hand (tiny ones that clog the filter etc.) and put them in with the loaches to help with the problem. Still have too many to count! I mentioned to my coworker about my small-ish tank that will soon be a temporary home to some new snails until I get my larger tanks set up and possibly have one only for snails. (when I move and have space of my own--in a month.) she looked at me quizzically and said "snails, plural? What are you thinking?!?!?" I told her I was mail-ordering some purples, blues, ivories etc. and she understood. For some reason she thought I was just planning on taking some of our problem snails home with me amd thought I was nuts!! When she realized they would be 'real' snails, it made much more sense to her. I may be a snail nut, but I'm not that nutso!!

Emily

[Gastro]

What happened to all my posts? I used to have 300 posts as Snailfan.

[AngryOakTree]

You gave two usernames?
Why?

[Gastro]

My old one got messed up so I got a new one.