Snail(achachatina Marginata) is a small body animal which belongs to the family “Mollusca” . snail are hermaphrodite (they have both male and female reproductive organs in their body system). The practice of rearing small is called “heliculture”.
Snail farming is one of the best farming business in the agricultural sector of the world, the amazing thing about the business is the fact that only few people have been able to discover the real potential that is embedded in the business and even this few are not ready to let out the methodology in the business to anyone.
Over the years, scientists and agriculturists have been able to discover and map out so many health and nutritional benefits in snail farming and how people can actually domesticate them.
Snail farming is one of the best lucrative businesses anyone can consider in the agricultural sector of Nigeria because it requires little start-up capital and the returns are endless.
The growth of snail farming as been viral for sometimes as a result of different discoveries and research findings about snail, snail farming is prolific and lucrative as a result of fast growing breeds like the achatina achatina, they grows so fast and reach market value faster than other breeds.
STARTING YOUR OWN SNAIL FARMING, you have to make provisions for the housing system, which be less windy, high loamy/water land, snails like a cool and cold weathered environment so you must make provisions for shade by planting trees around their house area or constructing their house under a good conditioned shade.
The nature of soil to be used is loamy/sandy any soil that is acidic and clayey must be avoided.
Another important aspect of snail farming is getting them or what I will call STOCKING; you see most times when people are desperate for something they failed to get it right like is expected of them, it is advised that you get snail form a reliable and well recognized farm, a commercial government farm or a research institute, you can also order for the egg and have them hatch in your own snailery (21 to 28days).
Check your snail maybe they are viable and check for fertile eggs only.
When constructing their house you can make a drench of concrete and fill the button with loamy soil, regular wetting is encouraged as the snail requires cold and cool environment for their total wellness.
NOTE: their house must be protected from predators, snails are very cool and quiet animals they cannot easily defend themselves from predators so you must consider stuffs like that when constructing their house. Some of their snail land predators are soldier ants, and termites and you must fight against their attack in the snailery.
FEED AND FEEDING; Snails feed on fruits and leaves of plants, actually research as made it possible that we now have some formulated concentrate feeds specially designed for snails, to enhance their growth so you don’t have to run out of leaf or vegetables at any interval, you can also buy those feeds that are specially made for snails.
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Some of the natural feeds for snails that includes fruits, vegetables and leaves are;
LEAVES: cocoyam leaf, banana leaf, mango leaf, cocoyam leaf, egg plant.
FRUITS: oil palm, eggplants, maize, pawpaw, cassava, mango, cucumber, banana, tomatoes, water melon and lots more.
So you can see that their feeds are not fat fetch, snail is one of the most flexible animals to raise and breed in a domestic environment. Some of the benefits of snails includes:
· They are less expensive
· They requires low start-up capital
· They are easy to handle and manage.
· Unlike poultry, pig and others they don’t have any irritating smell and they don’t make noise.
· They are good for many health conditions and diseased patients.
· Research as made us to understand that snails have low fat, and quality minerals likes magnesium, protein, iron, vitamins and calcium.
· They are very prolific.
· They yield their investment return faster .
· Snail farming business is one of the best empowerment and entrepreneur business anyone can start from home without affecting your current business.
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When you start your own poultry you need to seriously watch their growth, improvement and general development. Adequate medications must be observed.
It is advised that you separate the bigger ones form the smaller so that their growth will be equal.
The fact that snails are hermaphrodite makes their reproduction easy, they can produce up to thousands of eggs, but you must watch their production to that they don’t become a nuisance.
Selling and marketing snails are very easy, in fact you can earn foreign exchange with snails,
You can sell them international (which we shall be teaching how to do this in the nearest future.) starting at the local level, there is high demand for snail meat in high commercial restaurants and eateries round the world, the same applies to Nigeria.
It is certain the current demand for snail meat is high and cannot be met worth the current production level thus, the reason for an increase in the level of productivity.
If you start with let say #100,000 after a year you can sell one snail at the rate of (one for #100) that’s a reduced price actually, if you are selling altogether a total of 1million snails
So 1million x 100 = 100,000,000 that’s how profitable snail farming business can be.
We hope to share and enlighten you more on the benefits of snail farming in our next post.
