Here is a photo of one of my snail babies, laying her own clutch of eggs. This little girl is less than 3 months old, and already she’s on her way to being a momma.

This was supposed to be impossible; I’ve read that they don’t start laying eggs till they’re at least 5 months old. Appearantly, this snail doesn’t know how to read.

BTW that white crud on her shell and to the right of her, is the remains of an older clutch that I hadn’t got around to cleaning off. This was always Shelly’s favorite egg-laying corner. Like mother, like daughter I guess.

I don’t know what’s the attraction of this corner, but it seems to be the place for egg clutches…

Here is Shelly laying egg clutch number eight. Big Blue is supervising, by the looks of things.

When I found the first egg clutch, my reaction was “Yay!” but by the fourth, it was more like “Oh, crap…”

I’m going to have to start destroying egg clutches, I don’t have the resources to raise several hundred babies. Still, I’d like some coloured ones – the first two clutches produced nothing but gold / light coloured snails. And this newest clutch does look ‘darker’, making me wonder if it was perhaps laid by one of the other snails.

On the left is the third clutch, now 10-days old. On the right is the fourth clutch, just laid last night.

There’s still two clutches, I’ve left them where they are to let them incubate where the snail(s) put them.

The first clutch is now two weeks old. It’s awkwardly placed on the back of a filter, and I don’t think I’d be able to get it off without damaging it anyways. When it hatches, the babies will just drop down into the tank I guess. The first clutch is the larger one, being over 2 inches long I think.

First Clutch, 2 weeks along

It could just be wishful thinking, but it looks to me that the clutch is starting to turn colour, and I can see what I think are black spots in some of the eggs – little dark coloured babies maybe?

With luck, the first clutch will hatch some time in the next week or so – I’ve read 3 weeks is a common incubation period.

The second clutch is in a better spot for watching and dealing with – I could put a net breeder under it, or even try and knock it off into a net, if I wanted to put the babies somewhere else.

If 3 weeks is the magic number, then the second one has about another fortnight to go.

Second Clutch, 1 week along.

The second clutch is small, only about an inch and a half long, and a half inch around.

This morning when I woke up, I had a big surprise – not only were there more snail eggs, but the snail laying them was caught in the act!

And further to my surprise, it wasn’t Big Blue – it was Shelly!

Up to this moment I didn’t even know for sure if Shelly was male or female.

Now I need to figure out what I’m going to do with all these eggs… some snail babies would be nice, but 100’s and 100’s would be too much.

Snail Eggs!

This morning I had a surprise discovery! Snail Eggs!

Now that’s a happy hallowe’en treat!

I’ve been watching and waiting for eggs since early August, but my snailies have been leaving me frustrated. Till now!

Yay!

They’re squeezed into a super-awkward spot behind one of the filters – the snail must have shoved the filter out of the way a bit just to get in there. It’s a crummy picture because of the wierd angle I needed to twist into, to get the shot.

Now – will they hatch? How many will hatch? Too many? Not enough? Any?

It’s a new and improved kind of waiting and wondering.

My big blue snail still hasn’t laid any eggs, but she continues to climb up out of the water on a regular basis as if looking for a place to lay.

Lately she’s taken to climbing up the filters, making like a salmon going upstream to spawn.

It’s kind of funny but also a bit sad, I don’t know why she doesn’t just pick a dry spot on the glass and get to it.

I worry that she’s just going to wear herself out and never lay anything at all.