Perhaps strangely, garden snails (Cornu aspersum) hold a special place in my heart. My parents weren’t really “pet people” when I was growing up. I always really wanted pets, but my parents weren’t into the idea. When I was in 4th grade my teacher did a lesson plan on snails, and we had a few garden snails as class pets. I still remember how excited I was when it was my turn to take them home for a weekend.
By the time the end of the school year rolled around, in typical snail fashion, a few class pets turned into those few adult snails plus a crazy number of babies. The teacher decided to give baby snails away to students whose parents allowed it and I was, somehow, able to convince my parents that a couple of tiny snail friends were exactly what was missing from my life. I needed them!
Cut to a few years later and I was the one supplying baby snails to the fourth grade classrooms at the beginning of each school year! I loved my little alien-like friends. I feel like, in many ways, my snails were my introduction into keeping pets, especially exotic pets, a passion I would, as you can probably tell from this site, never outgrow.
Pet Snails Are Hard To Get?
Over time my childhood snails eventually all passed away or went on to new homes. I always remembered them fondly, and a few times, as an adult, I would look into whether or not you could buy snails as pets. Garden snails are actually not native to the area I live in. Believe it or not, their native habitat is in the Mediterranean region. However, they have been introduced, by people, to many other areas including throughout the US. That being said, I live in the northeast United States and I’ve never actually seen a garden snail ‘in the wild’.
As I wrote about previously, the legality of keeping snails as pets can be a bit of a gray area. Although there are no laws, at this time, forbidding keeping garden snails as pets, it is illegal to transport them across state lines. There are basically two ways of legally obtaining garden snails as pets in the US. One is to find them outside. The other is to buy them, locally, captive bred. Both options, as it turns out, come with their own difficulties and issues.
Finding Wild Caught Garden Snails
I’ve spoken to fellow snail enthusiasts who have no issues finding garden snails in the wild. In fact, I’ve even seen photos of peoples’ sidewalks and homes covered in them after a light summer rain. Whether you will find them readily in your location though, will vary. As I mentioned above, I’ve never been able to find a garden snail in the wild where I’m located. And believe me, I’ve tried.
Even if wild snails are prevalent in your area, there’s some things you should think about before taking them from the wild. The biggest concern for me has always been the fact that snails are pretty notorious for hosting parasites. Garden snails in particular are common hosts of nematodes as well as multiple species of flatworms.
I’m not going to get into too much detail in this post about the specifics of snails and parasites and how they could potentially impact humans. That’s a topic for another day. However, I’ll note that snails can, potentially, carry diseases that could impact humans. It’s rare. Most knowledgeable keepers will tell you that as long as proper hygiene is maintained keeping wild snails is safe. But it’s something to keep in mind, especially so if you have small children who may attempt to put snails in their mouths or neglect washing their hands after handling their slimy new pet.
Purchasing Captive Bred Garden Snails
To me, purchasing captive-bred animals from other keeps always seemed like the best way to go. With snails, however, this can be easier said than done. When was the last time you met a snail breeder? Yeah, there aren’t a lot of them out there.
Snail “breeders” are typically just fellow keepers. Snails breed like crazy, whether you want them to or not. It’s par for the course with keeping snails that you have to sift through their substrate to search for, and cull, eggs often. But sometimes keepers miss eggs, and clutches hatch. Or they are sometimes allowed to hatch on purpose, usually when a keeper wants to increase their personal snail population.
Whether accidental or not, snail keepers will occasionally have baby snails to rehome. However, as you can probably imagine, there are not a crazy number of snail keepers out there to begin with. So not only do you have to find someone who keeps snails, and has available snail babies to share, but, and this is a big but, they also have to be located within your state.
Because remember that pesky little rule! It’s illegal to transport garden snails across state lines.
I know there are people selling snails online. It may seem a small offense to some, but what they are doing is illegal. If you get caught getting snails shipped to you across state lines the snails will be confiscated and killed, and you can be fined.
Finding Snail “Breeders” In Your Area
I’m not going to offer advice for finding wild-caught garden snails in this post, since I’ve been unsuccessful in finding them myself. I also don’t typically recommend keeping wild-caught animals, even inverts, if you can avoid it. Keeping a snail or two that you find outside is not the end of the world, but I personally always prefer to keep captive-bred animals.
So that begs the question, where can you find fellow snail enthusiasts that may have baby snails available in your state? We’re keeping things legal up in here! The best way to find snail keepers in your state, in my opinion, is to join USA based snail groups. I’m not familiar with every social media site but I know there are dedicated USA-based snail groups on Facebook. Keepers in the group with available snails will often post, listing their location, looking for new homes for snails. Many groups have a master list of users listed by state, so you can connect with keepers in your area. Or you can even make a post of your own, requesting snails in your area.
I’ve also had luck finding snails in my area, believe it or not, posted on Craigslist. My current escargatoire of garden snails originally came from someone who posted them on my local Craigslist. I’m not super familiar with listing sites other than Craigslist, but if you are, keep your eyes out on the pet pages. You might get lucky! I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, snails breed like crazy. So, if you have any keepers in your area, it’s likely that at some point they’ll have snails to rehome.
Luck Be With You!
If you really have your heart set on pet snails, finding them can sometimes be frustrating. At least finding them legally. But I’ve been finding that, at least in my area, keeping unique pets, such as inverts, seems to be growing in popularity. For years I passively kept my eyes open for available snails in my area with no luck. These days I see them posted locally online somewhat often. Hopefully, with a little bit of luck, you’ll be able to find available snails in your area too!
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