Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just started keeping Helix aspersa (brown garden snails) as feeders for my sheltopusik. So far so good. They're easy to keep and the lizard loves them. Does anyone else have any experience using these snails as feeders? I'm going to be keeping some kind of terrestrial snail as long as I have this lizard. He doesn't like crickets anymore and neither do I.

Aren't those illegal in the US? I know some kinds of large snails are banned.

I know they are a destructive invasive species here in California, but I don't know if there are any laws prohibiting taking them from the wild. When I looked them up, I found a care sheet and some information about how they've proliferated here and become an agricultural problem.

I've been collecting about 10 at a time from an organic garden and feeding 1 to the lizard every day. It's convenient to collect them in bulk, and it gives me the chance to gut-load them and make sure they seem healthy. I'm not breeding them or selling them or releasing any back into the wild. I check their enclosures for eggs and plan to destroy any I find (haven't found any yet).

Could it really be illegal to collect an invasive species, keep it for a week, and then feed it to an animal? Wouldn't any laws against them be intended to reduce their numbers, not protect them?

I didn't know you were getting them from the "wild". I would be leery of feeding any wild caught prey. Even in an organic garden, there are bound to be contaminants. And who knows how far they roam.

Good point. I guess I'll hold off on using these snails as feeders until I can find a large organic farm to take them from.