Snail farming in Nigeria is one of the most lucrative, cost effective, easy to run businesses that requires very little capital to run compared to other forms of agricultural practices.
Snail farming does not require big parcel of land. In fact, one can start a commercial snail farming business in one’s backyard. Snail farming is environmental friendly and the cost of feeding them is low.
In Australia and USA, snail farming is big business, providing opportunities to many farmers. In Uk, Snails can be seen in many supermarkets and stores. meaning it is a big deal there. Most people in Nigeria and Ghana still have the believe that snail can only be picked in the bush. The culture of going to the bush to pick snails in the villages during raining time has been there for generations. So, it is difficult for people to come to term that snail can actually be kept and grown at home.
As simple as the business is, one cannot be a successful snail farmer unless one understands the fundamentals of the business. Knowledge is a prerequisite to any successful venture in life; whether it is snail farming or any business at all.
In Australia and USA, snail farming is big business, providing opportunities to many farmers. In Uk, Snails can be seen in many supermarkets and stores. meaning it is a big deal there. Most people in Nigeria and Ghana still have the believe that snail can only be picked in the bush. The culture of going to the bush to pick snails in the villages during raining time has been there for generations. So, it is difficult for people to come to term that snail can actually be kept and grown at home.
As simple as the business is, one cannot be a successful snail farmer unless one understands the fundamentals of the business. Knowledge is a prerequisite to any successful venture in life; whether it is snail farming or any business at all.
What Is Snail Farming About?
Snail farming, also know as heliculture, is the process of raising land snails for food or other purposes by humans. Generally, their flesh can be used as edible escargot, their slime in cosmetics, and their eggs for human consumption as a type of caviar.
Snails belong to a molluscan class Gastropoda, that has a coiled shell large enough for the animal to retract completely into. But when snails are been referred to, the focus isn’t only on land snails, but also to thousands of species of sea snails and freshwater snails.
The purpose of this article is to focus on land snails because, they’re the most widely used for snail farming.
3 Popular And Best Specie Of Snail For Snail Farming
1). Achatina Fulica:
This African land snail is largely located in East Africa, especially Kenya and Tanzania, and has the scientific name Achatina Fulica. They are famously know as the “giant African snail” or the “giant African land snail”.
Although they’re largely found in East Africa, these snails are can also be found in the US, China, Taiwan, and India. The adult Achatina Fulica snail is usually around 7 centimetres (2.8 in) in height and 20 centimetres (7.9 in) or more in length.
The shells of these snails are conical in shape, and also about twice as high as it is broad. The colours of their shells highly vary because they depend largely on their diet, but brown is the most common colour of these African land snails.
The major down side of the Achatina Fulica is they’re a large cause of pest issues around the world.
2). Achatina Achatina:
Also know as the “African tiger land snail” or the “African giant snail”, these species of snails are air-breathing land snails. They are said to be largely located in West Africa, between 160 to 300 kilometres off the coast of countries as, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Benin, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Liberia, and Togo.
The shells of the Achatina Achatina can grow to a length of 18 centimetres (7.1 in) with a diameter of 9 centimetres (3.5 in). Some have been observed in the wild to grow to 30×15 cm. These measurements makes them the largest extant species of land snails.
The Achatina Achatina, is a great source of protein, are hermaphrodites just like almost all pulmonate gastropods, and have both male and female organs. This makes each snail able to lay up to 1,200 eggs in a year.
The downside of the Achatina Achatina is they can be serious pests, and cause adverse effects to agriculture, natural ecosystems, commerce, and human health.
3). Archachatina Marginata:
The Archachatina Marginata are giant West African snails or Banana Rasp snails. They are air breathing tropical land snails, can grow up to 20 cm long, and have the ability to live for up to 10 years.
This species of land snails are majorly found in Nigeria, through Cameroon, the republic of Congo, the Caribbean, and Martinique.
These snails are nocturnal forest dwellers, and dislike overcrowding. If they get too crowded in a particular space, they begin to spread out.
Their mating method varies per location. Because they do not have both sexual organs, they have to mate with the opposite sex to reproduce. This mating method makes reproduction and population increase very slow for the Archachatina Marginata, unlike the Achatina Achatina.
These land snails eat plants at a ferocious state, and so, this behaviour leads to the destruction of crops and damages to homes. This is one of the strongest reasons the Archachatina Marginata are banned in the United States.
Suitable Environment And Weather Conditions For Snail Farming
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.
How To Choose A Right Snail For Snail 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 5o’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.”
Constructing 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.
What And How Do Snails Feed?
Land snails generally eat plants, fungi, and algae. A great way to handle their diet is to provide them with plant matter and vegetables such as carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, and a host of other vegetable meals.
They can also feed on fruits such as mangoes, tomatoes, paw paw, cucumber, banana, and more.
Best Ways To Harvest Your Snails
Your snails can be harvested into containers, bowls, boxes, baskets, or through other means. It’s important that during the harvest process they are handled with care, because of their high fragility. Because of this, it’s important that every container the snails are harvested into shouldn’t exceed 10 kilograms, so they can be easily convened.
Also, your snails should be harvested only when they’ve reached full maturity, so you can sell them for a good price and make high returns from your investment. Check the brim of their shells to know if they are well mature. The brim should be harder and generally thicker than every other parts of the shells if they’ve matured enough.
Lastly, keep a good portion of the snails for subsequent reproduction. Selling off everything in the market is a no-brainer for any farmer.
Conclusion
While there are several other profitable agribusiness ideas like poultry farming, fish farming, grasscutter farming, and more, snail farming stands as another profitable agribusiness to invest in, at the right scale.
