GROWING SNAILS IN PADDOCK DURING THE DRY SEASON

ABSTRACT

The raising and growing of snails in open pastures of fresh vegetables – a natural ecofriendly environment allows the snails to grow as nature intended. When compared to snails bred in high density situations such as small enclosures or green house environments free-range snails have demonstrated a significantly lower mortality rate and the snails produced are well-developed and consistent in size. After years of experimentation and trials for housing and breeding, the current method of raising species of snails in open areas of pasture production has proved to be less labour intensive and more cost effective than growing snails indoors or in green houses. This experiment was conducted in the Animal Farm Project, University of Benin, Benin-city (6^O20¹ 21.0660’’ N and 5^O 37’ 2.8092’’ E, elevation of 28ft above sea level) in the rainforest of Nigeria. Snail bred in free – range fields have higher reproduction yields. The study is to examine the Growth of snails in paddock during the dry season using cocoyam as a cover crop. From the result obtained in the experiment having 83% of alive and intact. This shows the snails can do well on range land with high survival rate, no mortality and increase in weight. This is due to the proper handling of the snails, consistent failing watering of the paddock and the freedom of movement of the snails and as a result leading to the escape of 17% of the total size in the range land. Bearing that in mind, it can also be said that although the dehydrating effects of growing snails in dry season cannot be totally eradicated, it can be properly managed and controlled through proper farm management. In this case, using cocoyam as a cover crop combined with consistent watering of the paddock, the snail’s survivability is greatly increased.