Farewell Claireford...and a mystery.
Today we bid a sad farewell to Claireford the snail. He/She was a good pet. Low maintenance, easy to please and fun to take care of. #1 got Claireford at school at the end of 3rd grade as part of a science unit. Each of the kids in his class got to keep the snail they observed and on the last day of school #1 brought home Claireford. The snail was named after Claire and Clifford Huxtible, the parents of the Cosby show. Since snails can be a boy or a girl he thought the name would be fitting.
Once we got Claireford home we set him/her up in a fish bowl with dirt on the bottom, a few rocks, a cuttle block to provide calcium for a healthy shell, and a screened lid on the top to keep the snail from escaping. Claireford liked a variety of foods, but Romaine lettuce seemed to be the favorite. We had Claireford for a little over a year before he/she passed away quietly in a corner of the fish bowl.
The interesting thing is, that there is a new tenant in the tank. When I discovered Claireford there was also a very small slug on the inside of the tank climbing up the wall. I am not sure how it got there. Its the same color as Claireford and at first I thought it was a baby snail, but there is no shell. I have no idea how a slug could have gotten in there through the two lids that are on the fishbowl. All I can think of is that maybe some of the dirt we brought in from the yard had a slug egg in it. I was hoping for a baby snail. We will keep the new tenant for a while to see what happens. It does have a kind of a bulge on one side that I thought might be the beginning of a shell, but everything I have read says that snails are born with shells in the first place. Its quite a mystery anyhow.
Goodbye Claireford! Happy leaf hunting in that big valley in the sky.
Once we got Claireford home we set him/her up in a fish bowl with dirt on the bottom, a few rocks, a cuttle block to provide calcium for a healthy shell, and a screened lid on the top to keep the snail from escaping. Claireford liked a variety of foods, but Romaine lettuce seemed to be the favorite. We had Claireford for a little over a year before he/she passed away quietly in a corner of the fish bowl.
The interesting thing is, that there is a new tenant in the tank. When I discovered Claireford there was also a very small slug on the inside of the tank climbing up the wall. I am not sure how it got there. Its the same color as Claireford and at first I thought it was a baby snail, but there is no shell. I have no idea how a slug could have gotten in there through the two lids that are on the fishbowl. All I can think of is that maybe some of the dirt we brought in from the yard had a slug egg in it. I was hoping for a baby snail. We will keep the new tenant for a while to see what happens. It does have a kind of a bulge on one side that I thought might be the beginning of a shell, but everything I have read says that snails are born with shells in the first place. Its quite a mystery anyhow.
Goodbye Claireford! Happy leaf hunting in that big valley in the sky.
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