Snails In the House

When junior Eliza Shane was taking her dog for a walk in late May, she spotted a dozen snails in her lawn and garden. She decided to bring a couple of the snails back to her backyard in an effort to monitor their growth. To do this, she made a terrarium for them to live in inside of her home using a small plastic box filled with soil, rocks and leafy greens for food. She then poked holes in the top of the box to improve its oxygen flow. These terrariums house two garlic snails Shane has currently. They are named Farrah and Kevin. 

“The snails have two opposite personalities.” Shane said. “Farrah enjoys hiding in the soil, while Kevin sleeps all day and [wakes up] at night to eat celery for hours.” 

The snails in her garden have always fascinated Shane, bringing her to begin research on how to properly care for them and their personalities. She also plans to find multiple snails of the same species to breed them. In the future, Shane hopes to switch out her homemade terrarium for a store-bought one and watch her snails’ shells grow from being half an inch to 1.5 inches.

“Keeping snails is actually very easy,” Shane said. “I definitely recommend raising snails if you get bored because they are insanely cool and amazing to watch.”