Edible land snail production under natural climatic conditions in Nova Scotia

Abstract

One thousand two hundred and fifty land snails were divided randomly among 25, 1.5-m × 0.9-m × 1.5-m cages wrapped in a nylon screen and chicken wire to prevent the snails from escaping and to protect them from predators. The cages were placed in a shaded area on the southeastern edge of a white clover field and randomly divided into five nutritional treatments with each treatment replicated five times. The snails were fed with natural vegetation, lettuce and oyster shells, lettuce alone, oat bran, or white clover in treatments 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. A digestibility trial on lettuce and white clover was also carried out. The snails gained significantly (P < 0.05) more weight when fed with the lettuce and lettuce plus oyster shells than the other treatments. The weight gains for the white clover and natural vegetation were intermediate among the diets. The death rate was approximately 5.1 ± 0.3% in each treatment with the exception of the oat bran diet (66 ± 5%). The digestibilities of lettuce and white clover dry matter were 83.1 ± 1.3% and 82.5 ± 1.5%, respectively, and were not significantly different (P > 0.05). It was concluded that edible land snails can be raised outside during the summer under the environmental conditions of Nova Scotia if fed with diets 1, 2, 3, or 5. Key words: Edible land snail, Otala, nutrition, Nova Scotia