Garden Enemy or Bird Food

I found this little guy out on my driveway yesterday. He looks quite a bit like the snails I keep in my fish tanks so I took some pictures to share.


Some Snail Facts:
1. The largest land snail ever found was 15 inches long and weighed 2 pounds!
2. Snails reply mainly on their sense of touch and smell when finding food because they have very poor eyesight.
3. Snails cannot hear.
4. Snails can retract one or both of their tentacles at a time.
5. Garden Snails mainly eat garden plants and vegetables, but they will also eat decaying plants and soil.
6. Garden snails evolved from sea snails about 600 million years ago.


There are some out there who view these little fellows as Garden pests to be terminated with extreme prejudice. They seem to forget in an effort to save their garden that all things in nature work together. You see these are also tasty treats for your local song birds. So if you want to control your popluations of snails in your garden then consider turning your back yard into a habitat for song birds. Add a bird bath and some plants they can hide in then some feeders to add variety to their diets. Then you will have yourself a natural control and you can enjoy them for the amazing creatures they are instead of hating them as an enemy of the garden.

Some Cute Pictures and a Word of Warning!

A rare quiet moment with Fitz and Spot

(usually its Spot attacking Fitz)

Ok I know these aren't the best shots of Rex but he is very camera shy!

I've been trying to get a good shot of him in his Super Turtle pose but when ever he sees me coming with the camera he dives into the water. I took these shots across the room using the Zoom.

Some new Additions to the Family Menagerie. Since the Frogs haven't come in we got these colorful fish to fill the tank. We've got an order of tadpoles coming in with a local store and when they come in these will go to the tank in my sons room.

Ok now for the word of warning. If you get snails for your tank and they lay eggs you may want to think twice about having them hatch. The tank in the picture above is NOT dirty those are all snails. While the big ones crawled up the side of the tank and laid their eggs when they are little apparently they lay them on plant leaves the filter where every. Now we have hundreds of snails (no I"m not exaggerating).
It may seem mean but right now I'm really glad the turtle likes to eat snails!

Baby Snails Update

Baby Snail on Mom's shell

Well it hasn't been 2 - 4 weeks but the baby snails are hatching. I haven't actually seen them coming out but the egg patch looks like it is sweating and there are baby snails everywhere in the tank and I swear you can almost watch them grow.

Baby Snail on a rock

I've had to seperate the three adult snails they've been alittle too prolific.

More Baby Snails to come

Click on any of the Baby Snails pictures to see them up close

A Big Surprise

Guess what I woke up to this morning. Go Ahead Guess.

I was going about my usual morning routine: Let the dog out, Start the Coffee, Let the Dog back in Feed the Cats and Dog, Feed the Turtle the walk into the living room to feed the baby fish.

What the HECK is that thing in the back of my tank?

If you click the picture you can see it close up.

It's Baby Snails..........Well Snail Eggs. Snails actually crawl out of the water to lay their eggs so they don't get eaten by preditors. So in about 2 to 4 weeks they'll hatch and fall into the water from the side of the tank. I hope I see it and get pictures to share. Of course then I'm going to have a tank full of baby snails.

Meet The Cast

CATS



Old Man Fitz

The oldest of the gang He joined our family in 1991 and he has out lived 4 other pets. If you picked him up you would swear he is virtually boneless. He will just blob over in your hands. He also likes to help on the computer as you can see.

Boots

He is our youngest cat. When we adopted him from the pound he was the nicest quietest cat you can possible imagine. BUT when we had him fixed he became rather mental. He will suddenly jump up and tear around the house or attack the dog. You can tell when its about to happen because of the wild look in his eyes.

DOG

Cricket

We got Cricket from the pound at the same time we adopted Boots. He has Hip Dyspepsia in both back legs and has already been operated on once. He is the sweetest dog you can possible imagine. We think he is half Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Half Chow. He has all the colors of the retriever with the curly tail and purple tongue of the Chow. Though after his operation his tail doesn't curl quite right any more.

Turtle

Temporary Name Rex

Rex is the newest addition to our family. We adopted him when his previous owner could no longer care for him. His name is only Temporary because we got him on my Husbands Birthday and told him he could name him but hasn't done so yet. He is very entertaining to watch though he is very camera shy and I've been having a heck of a time getting a good picture of him.


Frogs
To Be Announced
To Be Announced
The frogs haven't arrived yet we ordered them to replace the one my son lost before we moved. Boots the cat got him out of the tank somehow but I've fixed that problem the tank will be on a higher ledge with a lid that latches closed.

Supporting Cast of Characters Snails, Plecos, and Feeder Guppies

I don't have good pictures of the plecos yet and the feeder guppies are rather small and there are lots of them. We bought a dozen to give the turtle some exercise (he looked really bored) and they had babies. The babies are in a seperate tank.