shipping baby mystery snails

I have tons of baby mystery snails in my tank and I have people who would like some. But I have to ship them. I was wondering how big the baby should be before shipping it. I don't want to ship babies that are too little and have them die in transit.

 

I would think any size would live as long you ship priority mail then they should be fine.

 

THis is a great question. I'll piggy back off of it. My brother has a ton of them too and the local fish store said they would take them in bunches of 5 or so. Right now the biggest ones are about 1/8 the size of the parent. Should he wait to start transferring them until they get bigger? Or should he wait to let them get bigger?

 

Hi,

The smallest I have every shipped my Mysteries is pea size. I wouldn't ship smaller than that because their shells are too thin. It is best to ship them when they are around nickle or quarter size because their shells are thicker and they are not too old to handle the shipping. Older snails sometimes die in the mail. I don't know why. I would say around 30% of all my huge snails I've shipped died. My huge snails are usually around the size of a golf ball. It is fairly easy to ship snails. I can explain the shipping process if you'd like.

 

Okay. My biggest babies right now are like half the size of a pea.

And Id love if you would explain the shipping process to me. I have no clue how to do it.

 

Sure no problem. First thing you need to do when shipping mystery snails is get the box ready. I use the little PriorityMail boxes you can get at the post office for free. When you have the box you need to line it with some sort of insulation. I use styrofoam but you can also buy a more heavy duty insulation at a hardware store. I use either 1/2 inch or 1 inch styrofoam. The same thickness goes for insulation. You use the insulation to line every side of the box. You are basically making a box out of insulation to fit inside the cardboard box. Make sure it fights together well and there are no holes. The lid and base should fit tightly in the box.
Once you have the box ready you need to get the snails ready. Take out the snails you want to ship and put them somewhere they can't get away lol. I usually put mine in a goldfish bowl or cup. Sometimes I put them in a net inside the tank. Then you need paper towels. Take each strip of paper towel and fold it once. Then you wet it well in tank water (I would take the water out of the tank first). After it is wet you want to squeeze any excess water out o the paper towels. They should be damp but not dripping. Lay the paper towels out and then wrap each snail individually in the paper towels.
Once all the snails are wrapped you want to bag them. You can use ziplock bags or poly shipping bags. You usually don't want more than five per bag depending on the size of the snail. Once you have the snails bagged you want to inflate the bags completely and then seal them. I usually use my airpump and some tubing to do that. You can also blow into the bag. Exhaled air still has a high percentage of oxygen in it so you don't have to be worried about that. When using ziplocks you want the ones with the double seal. Make sure it is sealed completely so no air can escape. When using poly bags you want to use two rubber bands to seal it.
After the snails are completely bagged up and you have the box ready it is time to put the snails in the box and send it off. Before you place the bags of snails in the box you want to crumple up news paper or use packing peanuts and make a layer on the bottom of the box. Place the bags of snails on top of this. Then fill any spaces left in the box with crumpled up news paper or packing peanuts. Make sure all the bags are secure and won't move around too much in the box. Boxes are not handled gently when they are shipped so that is a fairly important part of packing. Not so much with snails but definitely with fish.
When you have everything packed all you have left to do is address the box, if you haven't done so already, and seal it. I use heavy duty packing tape to seal my boxes. Make sure you double seal all the openings of the box. This helps keep out cold/hot air and just makes the box more sturdy IMO.

Hope this helped! Let me know if you have any questions. I really should take pictures or a video next time I send snails LOL.

Jonathan

 

That helped tremendously! Thank you!

 

You're welcome haha. I'd love to see pictures of your snails.

 

I'll post some