📚 Resources Snail Care Checklist - selar.co/k340t5 Snail Farming Blueprint - selar.co/731y22 Other helpful videos 1. Snail Farming for Beginners - th-cam.com/play/PL3jpu4QfbzHYEvV51qBJtRjOz6FmRm2fX.html 2. How I built My Snail Farm - th-cam.com/play/PL3jpu4QfbzHb8IywSnuc5-g8lUHJCqp-r.html Please like this video and consider subscribing to this channel if you enjoy this type of content.
I am also a proponent for both systems, but you really need to be on the ground to adopt the pen system unless you have people well trained due to the nature of the work required to manage the pen house ..
Absolutely .. and with your size of pen, you will need to keep someone on the payroll full time, or 2 part-time and micromanage them unfortunately ..lots of work indeed...
@@zenaksnailfarm yes indeed, it's a lot of money to construct such pen house size.. but if you didn't manage the project yourself, you would have spent significantly more outsourcing the work . So well done ..
Your video was shared to me by someone a few minutes ago. I humbly have a few questions. 1. How did you arrive at 30,000 - 40,000 snail density for the net house? 2. If 7000 snails will max out a 50*50 plot, how is the density for 100*50 equal to 40,000? If the pathways and block work even covers another possible 7000 snail space, I do not think the net house should be able to take 30,000-40,000 snails. 3. You did not offer a single solution to any of the issues raised about the net house. Including the high injury rate which has wiped out a lot of snail net house farms. 4. Pig farmers also do alot of bending when cleaning and feeding in large scale farms. we do not often hear them complain about bending too much. Don’t you think we are creating a perception that in snail farming, one has to do almost no work at all. 5. You did not mention the fact that pests can easily attack snails in the net houses. Further more, the pest can hardly be controlled due to the nature of the housing. 6. Snails are not in their natural habitat if they cannot escape from pests. They are not in their natural habitat if you have limited amount of vegetation for them. Should we put poultry, rabbits and pigs in their natural habitat too? You also did not mention that you have to manually feed the snails every day in the nethouses as some of them are not able to reach most of the vegetation in the nethouses. 7. For how long have you been farming snails in the net houses? 8. You mentioned high injury rate in the net houses. Which means there will be frequent ant and housefly attacks. If that is not happening in the trench pens, doesn’t it provide more profits in the end? Anyway, I’d like to have a live TH-cam session with you to discuss these out. In your submission you said, you’re quite new to snail farming. I do wish you all the best though.
Hello KT, I''ll try and address each of your questions one at a time 1. The average size of each of my pen is 140 cm by 70cm. Thats an area of 0.98m2. With an average stocking density of 60 snails per sqm, it means I can have roughly 62 snails per pen. Since I have 117 pens, that means my entire pen can accommodate about 7254 snails. Remember I have designated some of the pens to be used for incubators so that will further reduce the pen I have available to house snails. The greenhouse has a dimension of 100ft (30.5m) by 50ft (15.25m). Thats an area of 465.125m2. Using an average stocking density of 62 snails per sqm means I can comfortably house about 29,000 snails. Now remember I have increased the surface area in my Greenhouse tremendously by adding plenty of vertical and horizontal shade blocks which will further provide accommodation for the snails since they can live vertically suspended or horizontally. Not to mention the 10ft height that adds a lot of head room since they can also attach themselves to tree trucks etc. 2. Let's call it 30,000 snails even if we are to stick to stocking density requirements considering what I already said in 1 above. 3. Talking about high death rates in the greenhouse is a low blow and subjective as I have witnessed farmers cry about absurdly high death rates in BOTH housing systems..so no system is an angel in that regard. Given that very little is known about snail diseases and management (unlike in fish, poultry and pig) that have well established disease management practices and vaccines to help checkmate these issues. Snail farming is faily new and a frontier farming practice so its expected that mortality will be fairly high. That being said, growth rate and hatchability rate are also high given that each snail lays a LOT of eggs to more than compensate for the ones that are lost. I have already talked about having an established walkway to minimise the incidence of crushing eggs while carrying out maintenance practices, I have also talked about (in my other videos) the need to always clean the feeding platform to make sure the snail poo doesn't contaminate the food given to the snails and to also remove dead snails so they don't contaminate others. I have also mentioned having a variety of plants and vegetables so shade the snails as well as create a local climate with the right relative humidity that'll aid their development. What else is there to say? 4. Some (if not a lot) of the people who want to do this business are elderly people that have retired from their career and want something that'll help them get by. Putting that sort of strain on their waist isn't a good idea. In addition, most people that come into this business don't have the financial means to hire workers..they barely have enough money to build the structures and buy feed talkless of highring workers that'll won't be dedicated. I'm not encouraging no work at all. Theres no food for a lazy man. But when it comes to health, its a different thing bro. I understand where you're coming from...people want things too easy and sharp sharp but come on..this is not that. 5. A greenhouse with trench and a strong net will help eliminate most of the pests. Now, because the places where the plants are is exposed to earth means the Greenhouse system is exposed to ants. But not ALL ants are detrimental to snails. Yes, I agree I've not been in this business long enough but I've studied enough about it and also asked others e.g. Engr Theocracy who has been in this business far longer than me, Ants can be a problem but not as much as we make it out to be 6. I don't feed me snails everyday in the greenhouse because they can feed on the vegetables like bitter leaf or sweet potato leaf whenever I don't want to give them fruits or formulated feed. A greenhouse that is well taken care of won't have to worry about a lot of pest infestation i.e. ants. The greenhouse can't exactly mirror the forest because its limited in size but at least its the closest thing to that. Come on bro, compared to pig, poultry and rabbit that require a bit more specialised feed, snails are more freestyle & anything goes kind of creatures. They can eat a lot of different vegetation. It's not the same situation with the other animals you've mentioned. I can bet that If we both can speak chicken and we ask a chicken which she prefers, she'll tell you she'll rather be left to roam about, play and find her own food rather than being stuck in a battery cage lol and be fattened for the kill. 7. I've been PRACTICING snail farming since November 2022...been learning about it for a lot longer including being around my uncle's farm who also does it 8. A well-constructed and fortified pen house doesn't have to worry about ants but that's not the least of the problem. There's still disease outbreak, cannibalism etc to worry about...which is why a lot of pen houses (in addition to greenhouses) report a lot of mortality. No system is a saint in this regard. I'm open to have a TH-cam live session of course...as long as you promise not to come for me with a knife...I'm not ready to die.
1. So by your reply the 30,000-40,000 was wrong. Secondly, the calculation in your reply is not entirely correct. You couldn’t take out the area of land the vegetation, the set up, path ways and platforms will take out of the total land size. You also mentioned in your reply that snails can live vertically? Not true. They usually climb and sleep vertically when they are uncomfortable or do not have enough shade. Eventually, they will drop and add up to the numbers. This is a fact ! 2. No it’s not 30,000 snails. What that will also mean is no stepping space for any human nor vegetation space. 3. Farmers cry about both housing reference to mortality. In the trench housing you know exactly how many snails you lost and can identify the cause in 24 hours. You can easily learn about the causes and avoid them if you mean business. Same cannot be said about the net houses. I bet you have discovered totally empty snail shells right? Ants had already had their feed. Bro, talking about vaccination and co, are fishes given vaccines and co? But farmers keep them in pest free farms. I can also bet you that no mater how much pathways you build, you’ll always need to step on the soil. Unless your path ways take up more space in the net house. You talked about the number of eggs compensating the mortality. Bro how do you know? Since you cannot do any accountability? You have tens of snails falling from your high walls every night. Whiles you have the AM laying averagely 8 eggs
4. Your vegetation will at a point get deserted. You will encounter difficulty in replacing them since you cannot step on the soil. It will soon come brother. Anticipate it. 5. The issue of bending is not an issue you should have brought up because it’s very low of a point. You even bend a lot in your net houses😬. This is business. If one is an elderly person, does it also mean they shouldn’t do pig farming since they will be bending there too? For people who have low income but want to start snail farming should start with few pens, have a different business module and scale up with time and employ labour. They do not have to raise everything they sell. I don’t know any poor person who can build 50 pens. It’s so profitable that if you farm them right, labour cost is not even a problem. 6. Please don’t mention that guy’s name. He keeps misinforming alot of people. Same person who said not a single ant can kill a snail. Same man who said only AF produce snail mucus? Let’s leave him out of this. I can tell you on authority that your farm is yet to be invaded by ants in all shape or form. The trench around it will stop some but most of them will build tunnels beneath the earth and appear in the net house. Note that a big variety of ants can eliminate snails. Some centipedes will make use of abandoned ant tunnels and infest the farm. It’s facts. And it will be difficult for you to control them. 7. Ofcourse every animals yearns for freedom. Giving them some free freedom does not necessarily mean it’s right. If there is an ant infestation in your farm, the ants will I’ll flee but still end up with them. Because they have been limited. You’re not in business if you still have pest attacks and cannot account for mortality. It’s like exposing poultry to snakes in a net house. They are roaming but will die. There is no cannibalism in snail farming if they get their calcium supplements. A trench farm owner can report on mortality day on day and decipher the cause like I said earlier. You can’t do same until harvest is due. You only depend on estimations and business is not done that way. I’ve been to very large scale farms in other industries and you’ll be marveled how they still prioritize accountability. +233548178415. Kindly shoot me a text on WhatsApp and I’ll respond when I get home. We should have a live TH-cam session. Thanks for responding though
@@k.t.samuel 1. My estimation is not wrong because I gave a range and my final number (taking into account the additional surface area from the shade blocks) fell within that range. It wasn't a number plucked out of thin air. Weather they go there to sleep doesn't matter. Bottom line is they do it. In the pen house that is almost perfectly shaded, they still climb up. Some do it to avoid predators on the floor. Their slime is way stronger than you give them credit for. They don't fall that often..far from it. In addition, snails live within the vegetation, on tree truck, in the shade block, in the spaces between the shade blocks etc. so those structures don't limit surface area..instead they add to it. 2. You can call it 29,000 if you want but in my humble opinion, its 30,000 if not more. To each their own 3. You can't always identify the cause if it's a disease. If they're not getting enough calcium and their shell is turning white of course you can EASILY identify that. But, if its death due to bacteria, fungal or viral infection in their food or water, it's not that easy to discern if we are being honest. I don't have snails falling from my high walls every night because it's netted all round and snails rarely even climb it. I'm talking from my own personal experience. We can stake money on it, put a night vision camera inside my greenhouse and see how many snails actually climb the net..come on! I don't know about other farms but mortality in my farm is not that high. Each snail laying on average 8 eggs, 3 times a year can more than compensate for the deaths. I'm being realistic
@@k.t.samuel 4. I don't anticipate my vegetation getting deserted to the point where i'll struggle to maintain the snails. In the rare event it happens, the pen house is there as backup incase I need to house them while the plants in the greenhouse recovers. In addition, I anticipate i'll have another greenhouse up and running when the snail population reaches that sort of critical level to start worrying about the vegetation being deserted 5. You can't compare bending to put food inside the snail food trouch in the greenhouse (less than 30 food troughs for that matter) to bending to put food inside food trough in the pen, bending to till soil for eggs, bending to incubate eggs etc for over 100 pens! Starting with few pens will take a long time to earn any reasonable income and scaling up with a pen house is just not wise. Thats my opinion. Why spend more to get less when I can spend the same amount to get a LOT more. Clearly, you don't want to agree on that so lets agree to disagree 6. Engr Theo has achieved a LOT in this space. Whether you agree with his teachings or not doesn't change that. For what he has achieved with regards to snail slime extraction, he deserves respect. And, he didn't say only AF produces slime! he said only AF snails produce the kind of slime that has the RIGHT PROPERTIES needed in the cosmetics industry..not that other snails don't produce slime at all. He's not stupid. Granted I don't agree with him on a lot of things e.g. I always clashed with him because he believed only snail greenhouse was good and snail pen was complete crap. I saw merit in both systems so we agreed to disagree on that 7 Like i said before, lets agree to disagree since it's clear we are both dug in in our beliefs and no one is willing to yield.
Hi Michael. Always great following your project journey. Always detailed ,thought provoking and analytical. My question is why such an elaborate roofing structure. You could've gotten a very moderately priced shading structure unless there's a science behind it. Kindly reply.thanks
Thanks bro With regards to why I went for a high roof, I live in a state in Nigeria that doesn't have much water. I wanted to sink a borehole but the hydrogeologist I hired said my land doesn't have much water and sinking a borehole would be a waste of money. Farming requires a lot of water to be sustainable so my other choice was to harvest rainwater. Since I was already building a pen house I decided to use its roof for the rainwater harvesting. In order to minimise leakage and increase the speed of water flow towards the reservoir, the roof has to be relatively high. So thats the reasoning behind it. The amount of money I'll save from not buying water will eventually amount to how much it cost me to build the entire pen house in a few years time given the rising cost of fuel and diesel
Understood. Very analytical but it does a little dis service to the comparison with the greenhouse interms of the cost outlay. I don't have a water limitation issue here so employing a relatively frugal roofing system will reduce my net spend. Just thought it should impact your analysis. Good work though
@@ROBERTBROWN-cz9wl I agree. Every person isn't limited by the same constraints. Roofing alone cost me about N2million so if I did a moderate roofing, the entire cost of the project will probably be about 5 to 6 million which is still more than the greenhouse with significantly less capacity
Nice hearing argument for both housing system I have questions Accountability is key in every business; you mentioned accountability in pen system what of the net system? Also the concrete pathway u mentioned that it should be provided what if a snail falls to it death and it starts smelling not near where u created the pathways how will u get it out? Also if a customer wants eg. point of lay snails how would u know how many you have and how will u get them out ; if u have to comb through the net house for them cos they won’t be at one place; won’t u destroy baby snails and eggs as u look for the particular snails needed by your customer? Finally how will u deal with pest infestation? I would be happy if these questions are addressed for those of us wanting to do snail farming. Thank you
Can I help with a few of ur questions? Accountability is difficult in greenhouse system bc there's no way of knowing how many snails you have. So you have to be hands on to ensure no thefts. Snails hardly fall off the way u may imagine, so the likelihood is low. Best time to sort your snails in a green house is at night when they come out to feed. Sorting them during the day may be difficult The walkway around the greenhouse should be such that with a picker, you can easily remove any dead snail once u identify one
The greenhouse system relies more on estimation. We don't know precisely how many people are in Ghana or Nigeria at any point in time because population growth is dynamic and is constantly in flux but we can estimate based on experience, extrapolations and models. The same is applicable here. I can isolate one or two models in my greenhouse and count how many snails I have there then extrapolate to get a reasonable number in the entire greenhouse. Snails are not hard to locate since i know they hide in the shade blocks and under fallen leaves...others can't be bothers and prefer to stay on the soil so they're not difficult to find and count. I can tell you categorically that, yes in theory snails can fall and die but I have NEVER witnessed such in my greenhouse. The ones that prefer to climb do so on the plants which are located in the module and the floor is covered with dead leaves and cover crops that can absorb the impact of the fall if that were to happen. They can't fall on the walkway because, unless they miraculously crawled all the way from the floor to the plant and managed to attach themselves to the shade net immediately above the walkway, I don't see how that can happen. I'm yet to see a snail adventurous enough to venture that far in my Greenhouse If a customer won't point of lay, they'll have to notify me ahead of time so I can enter the greenhouse and collect as much as I can see visibly. Now, I admit this is an obvious weakness for the greenhouse as locating such will be time consuming but I don't have to walk inside the module if I have a long picker to collect the snails. Hence no buried eggs/snails in the soil will be crushed The trench and the net around the greenhouse will deter most of the pests except the ants because of exposure to soil where the plants are. Like I said b4 in my videos, not all ants are bad for snails. Only a few of them are and as long as the greenhouse is kept clean of decaying food that attracts these ants, the issue is not as bad as people make it out to be. I've personally seen MANY ants in the same vicinity as my snails and they simply go about their business without ATTACKING the snails. Not all ants are bad...just a FEW. Apart from ants, I'm not sure what other pest infestation is there to worry about given what I've already mentioned regarding the trench and the net
Fantastic! Thank you for your detailed information on how to rear snails on either greenhouse or block pens. This has really helped me to make a better decision. I am 62 and having a farm of 9plots with a farm house. Could you please oblige me with your phone contact. I like to discuss with you personally! Thank you once again.
Hi sir, wouldn't also make sense to do a flat roof which reduces your roofing cost and put a shade net around the pen with an entrance so as to further reduce sunlight that accesses the pen and would intensify the darkness in there.
For my objective, which is to harvest a lot of rain water for the entire farm use, I need an elaborate roof. Because of how high my roof is, the total surface area is about 450 sqm. With a roof that big, my 75,000 litre capacity reservoir fill up from just 2 months of rain. I never have to purchase water or sink a borehole (which is speculative) Putting a shade net around the pen is a good idea...I just didn't bother doing it because I had already spent a lot by then and, given I was going to start with the greenhouse and use the pen house later, I decided to leave it for now Be that as it may, doing that means you have total darkness in the pen house and you'll have to wire the place for electricity. In a remote farm like mine, that means using alternative energy sources like solar...which is also expensive. So some people prefer to have access to natural light
@@zenaksnailfarmYou are right about the underground reservoir. So, basically you didn't dig a borehole and went with the underground reservoir? How much did it cost you to get the reservoir done? That will be a great video.
Yeah bro. I didnt bother sinking a borehole. I only have two wells for backup and then the reservoir. My farm is totally water and electricity sufficient all year round. Later I'll make a video on the cost of constructing the reservoir
Lastly sir there are some pens that create trenches/ pest barriers attached or a Little detached from each row of pens within the structure. I noticed your trench is outside or encompasses the whole structure externally rather than within the individual pens. Your thoughts Sir. Thanks
The point of the trench is to isolate and protect the entire pen house from external threats like crawling pests etc. Having one external trench rather than individual trench for each pen is more cost effective because you have more surface area available for your pen construction and less surface area to be plastered Put it this way, if I built individual trench for each pen, I'll have less than 117 pen on this half plot of land..further making the entire structure less appealing from an economical/financial standpoint.
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📚 Resources
Snail Care Checklist - selar.co/k340t5
Snail Farming Blueprint - selar.co/731y22
Other helpful videos
1. Snail Farming for Beginners - th-cam.com/play/PL3jpu4QfbzHYEvV51qBJtRjOz6FmRm2fX.html
2. How I built My Snail Farm - th-cam.com/play/PL3jpu4QfbzHb8IywSnuc5-g8lUHJCqp-r.html
Please like this video and consider subscribing to this channel if you enjoy this type of content.
Chief, you have ended the debate on housing system. As a practitioner of both systems your comparison is spot on.
Thanks bro. People fail to realise that it doesn't have to be either/or. Both systems can genuinely complement each other
Both are very important. Concrete pens are for breeding while green houses are for growing.
I am also a proponent for both systems, but you really need to be on the ground to adopt the pen system unless you have people well trained due to the nature of the work required to manage the pen house ..
Exactly bro. It ties you down because it can't be automated and it requires a lot of work
Absolutely .. and with your size of pen, you will need to keep someone on the payroll full time, or 2 part-time and micromanage them unfortunately ..lots of work indeed...
@@raphaelekugum1160 exactly bro. Money i could otherwise invest in other things
Great video.. this was certainly a huge project.. congratulations bro.. more grease to your elbow 💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾
Thanks bro. It's took a lot of money but I believe it's a worthwhile investment that will return bountifully in the future
@@zenaksnailfarm yes indeed, it's a lot of money to construct such pen house size.. but if you didn't manage the project yourself, you would have spent significantly more outsourcing the work . So well done ..
Brilliant n well presented. So much info packed in this video. May God richly bless you
Amen. You're welcome Judith!
I wish u could tell us the dollar equivalent for each amount u mention and the years involved. U are well equipped to discuss this subject of snails
Thanks
Both structures were built in 2021/22. The pen house cost about $9000 while the greenhouse cost roughly $4500
@@zenaksnailfarm I live in Ghana and do u consider consulting issues , in snails, outside Nigeria
@@jerrykwade not at the moment. I may start doing that in the future tho
Thanks greatly for the video. Pls, what is the size of the pen and how many snails in a pen? Thanks once again
You're welcome. The average size of each pen is 140cm x 70cm and it can take about 60 snails per pen
Your video was shared to me by someone a few minutes ago. I humbly have a few questions.
1. How did you arrive at 30,000 - 40,000 snail density for the net house?
2. If 7000 snails will max out a 50*50 plot, how is the density for 100*50 equal to 40,000?
If the pathways and block work even covers another possible 7000 snail space, I do not think the net house should be able to take 30,000-40,000 snails.
3. You did not offer a single solution to any of the issues raised about the net house. Including the high injury rate which has wiped out a lot of snail net house farms.
4. Pig farmers also do alot of bending when cleaning and feeding in large scale farms. we do not often hear them complain about bending too much. Don’t you think we are creating a perception that in snail farming, one has to do almost no work at all.
5. You did not mention the fact that pests can easily attack snails in the net houses. Further more, the pest can hardly be controlled due to the nature of the housing.
6. Snails are not in their natural habitat if they cannot escape from pests. They are not in their natural habitat if you have limited amount of vegetation for them. Should we put poultry, rabbits and pigs in their natural habitat too?
You also did not mention that you have to manually feed the snails every day in the nethouses as some of them are not able to reach most of the vegetation in the nethouses.
7. For how long have you been farming snails in the net houses?
8. You mentioned high injury rate in the net houses. Which means there will be frequent ant and housefly attacks. If that is not happening in the trench pens, doesn’t it provide more profits in the end?
Anyway, I’d like to have a live TH-cam session with you to discuss these out. In your submission you said, you’re quite new to snail farming. I do wish you all the best though.
Hello KT, I''ll try and address each of your questions one at a time
1. The average size of each of my pen is 140 cm by 70cm. Thats an area of 0.98m2. With an average stocking density of 60 snails per sqm, it means I can have roughly 62 snails per pen. Since I have 117 pens, that means my entire pen can accommodate about 7254 snails. Remember I have designated some of the pens to be used for incubators so that will further reduce the pen I have available to house snails. The greenhouse has a dimension of 100ft (30.5m) by 50ft (15.25m). Thats an area of 465.125m2. Using an average stocking density of 62 snails per sqm means I can comfortably house about 29,000 snails. Now remember I have increased the surface area in my Greenhouse tremendously by adding plenty of vertical and horizontal shade blocks which will further provide accommodation for the snails since they can live vertically suspended or horizontally. Not to mention the 10ft height that adds a lot of head room since they can also attach themselves to tree trucks etc.
2. Let's call it 30,000 snails even if we are to stick to stocking density requirements considering what I already said in 1 above.
3. Talking about high death rates in the greenhouse is a low blow and subjective as I have witnessed farmers cry about absurdly high death rates in BOTH housing systems..so no system is an angel in that regard. Given that very little is known about snail diseases and management (unlike in fish, poultry and pig) that have well established disease management practices and vaccines to help checkmate these issues. Snail farming is faily new and a frontier farming practice so its expected that mortality will be fairly high. That being said, growth rate and hatchability rate are also high given that each snail lays a LOT of eggs to more than compensate for the ones that are lost. I have already talked about having an established walkway to minimise the incidence of crushing eggs while carrying out maintenance practices, I have also talked about (in my other videos) the need to always clean the feeding platform to make sure the snail poo doesn't contaminate the food given to the snails and to also remove dead snails so they don't contaminate others. I have also mentioned having a variety of plants and vegetables so shade the snails as well as create a local climate with the right relative humidity that'll aid their development. What else is there to say?
4. Some (if not a lot) of the people who want to do this business are elderly people that have retired from their career and want something that'll help them get by. Putting that sort of strain on their waist isn't a good idea. In addition, most people that come into this business don't have the financial means to hire workers..they barely have enough money to build the structures and buy feed talkless of highring workers that'll won't be dedicated. I'm not encouraging no work at all. Theres no food for a lazy man. But when it comes to health, its a different thing bro. I understand where you're coming from...people want things too easy and sharp sharp but come on..this is not that.
5. A greenhouse with trench and a strong net will help eliminate most of the pests. Now, because the places where the plants are is exposed to earth means the Greenhouse system is exposed to ants. But not ALL ants are detrimental to snails. Yes, I agree I've not been in this business long enough but I've studied enough about it and also asked others e.g. Engr Theocracy who has been in this business far longer than me, Ants can be a problem but not as much as we make it out to be
6. I don't feed me snails everyday in the greenhouse because they can feed on the vegetables like bitter leaf or sweet potato leaf whenever I don't want to give them fruits or formulated feed. A greenhouse that is well taken care of won't have to worry about a lot of pest infestation i.e. ants. The greenhouse can't exactly mirror the forest because its limited in size but at least its the closest thing to that. Come on bro, compared to pig, poultry and rabbit that require a bit more specialised feed, snails are more freestyle & anything goes kind of creatures. They can eat a lot of different vegetation. It's not the same situation with the other animals you've mentioned. I can bet that If we both can speak chicken and we ask a chicken which she prefers, she'll tell you she'll rather be left to roam about, play and find her own food rather than being stuck in a battery cage lol and be fattened for the kill.
7. I've been PRACTICING snail farming since November 2022...been learning about it for a lot longer including being around my uncle's farm who also does it
8. A well-constructed and fortified pen house doesn't have to worry about ants but that's not the least of the problem. There's still disease outbreak, cannibalism etc to worry about...which is why a lot of pen houses (in addition to greenhouses) report a lot of mortality. No system is a saint in this regard.
I'm open to have a TH-cam live session of course...as long as you promise not to come for me with a knife...I'm not ready to die.
1. So by your reply the 30,000-40,000 was wrong.
Secondly, the calculation in your reply is not entirely correct. You couldn’t take out the area of land the vegetation, the set up, path ways and platforms will take out of the total land size.
You also mentioned in your reply that snails can live vertically? Not true. They usually climb and sleep vertically when they are uncomfortable or do not have enough shade.
Eventually, they will drop and add up to the numbers. This is a fact !
2. No it’s not 30,000 snails. What that will also mean is no stepping space for any human nor vegetation space.
3. Farmers cry about both housing reference to mortality.
In the trench housing you know exactly how many snails you lost and can identify the cause in 24 hours. You can easily learn about the causes and avoid them if you mean business.
Same cannot be said about the net houses. I bet you have discovered totally empty snail shells right? Ants had already had their feed.
Bro, talking about vaccination and co, are fishes given vaccines and co? But farmers keep them in pest free farms.
I can also bet you that no mater how much pathways you build, you’ll always need to step on the soil. Unless your path ways take up more space in the net house.
You talked about the number of eggs compensating the mortality. Bro how do you know? Since you cannot do any accountability?
You have tens of snails falling from your high walls every night. Whiles you have the AM laying averagely 8 eggs
4. Your vegetation will at a point get deserted. You will encounter difficulty in replacing them since you cannot step on the soil. It will soon come brother. Anticipate it.
5. The issue of bending is not an issue you should have brought up because it’s very low of a point. You even bend a lot in your net houses😬.
This is business.
If one is an elderly person, does it also mean they shouldn’t do pig farming since they will be bending there too?
For people who have low income but want to start snail farming should start with few pens, have a different business module and scale up with time and employ labour. They do not have to raise everything they sell.
I don’t know any poor person who can build 50 pens. It’s so profitable that if you farm them right, labour cost is not even a problem.
6. Please don’t mention that guy’s name. He keeps misinforming alot of people. Same person who said not a single ant can kill a snail. Same man who said only AF produce snail mucus?
Let’s leave him out of this.
I can tell you on authority that your farm is yet to be invaded by ants in all shape or form. The trench around it will stop some but most of them will build tunnels beneath the earth and appear in the net house.
Note that a big variety of ants can eliminate snails. Some centipedes will make use of abandoned ant tunnels and infest the farm. It’s facts. And it will be difficult for you to control them.
7. Ofcourse every animals yearns for freedom. Giving them some free freedom does not necessarily mean it’s right.
If there is an ant infestation in your farm, the ants will I’ll flee but still end up with them. Because they have been limited.
You’re not in business if you still have pest attacks and cannot account for mortality. It’s like exposing poultry to snakes in a net house. They are roaming but will die.
There is no cannibalism in snail farming if they get their calcium supplements.
A trench farm owner can report on mortality day on day and decipher the cause like I said earlier. You can’t do same until harvest is due.
You only depend on estimations and business is not done that way. I’ve been to very large scale farms in other industries and you’ll be marveled how they still prioritize accountability.
+233548178415. Kindly shoot me a text on WhatsApp and I’ll respond when I get home. We should have a live TH-cam session.
Thanks for responding though
@@k.t.samuel 1. My estimation is not wrong because I gave a range and my final number (taking into account the additional surface area from the shade blocks) fell within that range. It wasn't a number plucked out of thin air. Weather they go there to sleep doesn't matter. Bottom line is they do it. In the pen house that is almost perfectly shaded, they still climb up. Some do it to avoid predators on the floor. Their slime is way stronger than you give them credit for. They don't fall that often..far from it. In addition, snails live within the vegetation, on tree truck, in the shade block, in the spaces between the shade blocks etc. so those structures don't limit surface area..instead they add to it.
2. You can call it 29,000 if you want but in my humble opinion, its 30,000 if not more. To each their own
3. You can't always identify the cause if it's a disease. If they're not getting enough calcium and their shell is turning white of course you can EASILY identify that. But, if its death due to bacteria, fungal or viral infection in their food or water, it's not that easy to discern if we are being honest.
I don't have snails falling from my high walls every night because it's netted all round and snails rarely even climb it. I'm talking from my own personal experience. We can stake money on it, put a night vision camera inside my greenhouse and see how many snails actually climb the net..come on!
I don't know about other farms but mortality in my farm is not that high. Each snail laying on average 8 eggs, 3 times a year can more than compensate for the deaths. I'm being realistic
@@k.t.samuel 4. I don't anticipate my vegetation getting deserted to the point where i'll struggle to maintain the snails. In the rare event it happens, the pen house is there as backup incase I need to house them while the plants in the greenhouse recovers. In addition, I anticipate i'll have another greenhouse up and running when the snail population reaches that sort of critical level to start worrying about the vegetation being deserted
5. You can't compare bending to put food inside the snail food trouch in the greenhouse (less than 30 food troughs for that matter) to bending to put food inside food trough in the pen, bending to till soil for eggs, bending to incubate eggs etc for over 100 pens! Starting with few pens will take a long time to earn any reasonable income and scaling up with a pen house is just not wise. Thats my opinion. Why spend more to get less when I can spend the same amount to get a LOT more. Clearly, you don't want to agree on that so lets agree to disagree
6. Engr Theo has achieved a LOT in this space. Whether you agree with his teachings or not doesn't change that. For what he has achieved with regards to snail slime extraction, he deserves respect. And, he didn't say only AF produces slime! he said only AF snails produce the kind of slime that has the RIGHT PROPERTIES needed in the cosmetics industry..not that other snails don't produce slime at all. He's not stupid. Granted I don't agree with him on a lot of things e.g. I always clashed with him because he believed only snail greenhouse was good and snail pen was complete crap. I saw merit in both systems so we agreed to disagree on that
7 Like i said before, lets agree to disagree since it's clear we are both dug in in our beliefs and no one is willing to yield.
140×70cm is 2.3×4.7 ft and it will take 60 snails, is it POL or Jumbo snails?
Thanks for your ever responding. Where is your farm location?
This is mostly for POL. Jumbo snails are much bigger so should take less than 40 per pen. My farm is in Enugu state Nigeria
Hi Michael. Always great following your project journey. Always detailed ,thought provoking and analytical. My question is why such an elaborate roofing structure. You could've gotten a very moderately priced shading structure unless there's a science behind it. Kindly reply.thanks
Thanks bro
With regards to why I went for a high roof, I live in a state in Nigeria that doesn't have much water. I wanted to sink a borehole but the hydrogeologist I hired said my land doesn't have much water and sinking a borehole would be a waste of money. Farming requires a lot of water to be sustainable so my other choice was to harvest rainwater. Since I was already building a pen house I decided to use its roof for the rainwater harvesting. In order to minimise leakage and increase the speed of water flow towards the reservoir, the roof has to be relatively high. So thats the reasoning behind it. The amount of money I'll save from not buying water will eventually amount to how much it cost me to build the entire pen house in a few years time given the rising cost of fuel and diesel
Understood. Very analytical but it does a little dis service to the comparison with the greenhouse interms of the cost outlay. I don't have a water limitation issue here so employing a relatively frugal roofing system will reduce my net spend. Just thought it should impact your analysis. Good work though
@@ROBERTBROWN-cz9wl I agree. Every person isn't limited by the same constraints. Roofing alone cost me about N2million so if I did a moderate roofing, the entire cost of the project will probably be about 5 to 6 million which is still more than the greenhouse with significantly less capacity
Nice hearing argument for both housing system
I have questions
Accountability is key in every business; you mentioned accountability in pen system what of the net system?
Also the concrete pathway u mentioned that it should be provided what if a snail falls to it death and it starts smelling not near where u created the pathways how will u get it out?
Also if a customer wants eg. point of lay snails how would u know how many you have and how will u get them out ; if u have to comb through the net house for them cos they won’t be at one place; won’t u destroy baby snails and eggs as u look for the particular snails needed by your customer?
Finally how will u deal with pest infestation?
I would be happy if these questions are addressed for those of us wanting to do snail farming. Thank you
Can I help with a few of ur questions? Accountability is difficult in greenhouse system bc there's no way of knowing how many snails you have. So you have to be hands on to ensure no thefts.
Snails hardly fall off the way u may imagine, so the likelihood is low.
Best time to sort your snails in a green house is at night when they come out to feed. Sorting them during the day may be difficult
The walkway around the greenhouse should be such that with a picker, you can easily remove any dead snail once u identify one
The greenhouse system relies more on estimation. We don't know precisely how many people are in Ghana or Nigeria at any point in time because population growth is dynamic and is constantly in flux but we can estimate based on experience, extrapolations and models. The same is applicable here. I can isolate one or two models in my greenhouse and count how many snails I have there then extrapolate to get a reasonable number in the entire greenhouse. Snails are not hard to locate since i know they hide in the shade blocks and under fallen leaves...others can't be bothers and prefer to stay on the soil so they're not difficult to find and count.
I can tell you categorically that, yes in theory snails can fall and die but I have NEVER witnessed such in my greenhouse. The ones that prefer to climb do so on the plants which are located in the module and the floor is covered with dead leaves and cover crops that can absorb the impact of the fall if that were to happen. They can't fall on the walkway because, unless they miraculously crawled all the way from the floor to the plant and managed to attach themselves to the shade net immediately above the walkway, I don't see how that can happen. I'm yet to see a snail adventurous enough to venture that far in my Greenhouse
If a customer won't point of lay, they'll have to notify me ahead of time so I can enter the greenhouse and collect as much as I can see visibly. Now, I admit this is an obvious weakness for the greenhouse as locating such will be time consuming but I don't have to walk inside the module if I have a long picker to collect the snails. Hence no buried eggs/snails in the soil will be crushed
The trench and the net around the greenhouse will deter most of the pests except the ants because of exposure to soil where the plants are. Like I said b4 in my videos, not all ants are bad for snails. Only a few of them are and as long as the greenhouse is kept clean of decaying food that attracts these ants, the issue is not as bad as people make it out to be. I've personally seen MANY ants in the same vicinity as my snails and they simply go about their business without ATTACKING the snails. Not all ants are bad...just a FEW. Apart from ants, I'm not sure what other pest infestation is there to worry about given what I've already mentioned regarding the trench and the net
Well said bro
Thanks for your prompt response and I will revert if I have more questions. Thank you
@@harrietadams9940 you're welcome bro
Fantastic!
Thank you for your detailed information on how to rear snails on either greenhouse or block pens. This has really helped me to make a better decision. I am 62 and having a farm of 9plots with a farm house. Could you please oblige me with your phone contact. I like to discuss with you personally!
Thank you once again.
You're welcome. Thanks for watching.
You can reach me on: +234 802 7300 340
Hi sir, wouldn't also make sense to do a flat roof which reduces your roofing cost and put a shade net around the pen with an entrance so as to further reduce sunlight that accesses the pen and would intensify the darkness in there.
For my objective, which is to harvest a lot of rain water for the entire farm use, I need an elaborate roof. Because of how high my roof is, the total surface area is about 450 sqm. With a roof that big, my 75,000 litre capacity reservoir fill up from just 2 months of rain. I never have to purchase water or sink a borehole (which is speculative)
Putting a shade net around the pen is a good idea...I just didn't bother doing it because I had already spent a lot by then and, given I was going to start with the greenhouse and use the pen house later, I decided to leave it for now
Be that as it may, doing that means you have total darkness in the pen house and you'll have to wire the place for electricity. In a remote farm like mine, that means using alternative energy sources like solar...which is also expensive. So some people prefer to have access to natural light
@@zenaksnailfarmYou are right about the underground reservoir. So, basically you didn't dig a borehole and went with the underground reservoir?
How much did it cost you to get the reservoir done? That will be a great video.
Yeah bro. I didnt bother sinking a borehole. I only have two wells for backup and then the reservoir. My farm is totally water and electricity sufficient all year round.
Later I'll make a video on the cost of constructing the reservoir
How do I contact you to buy snails for My farm
Currently don't have stock for sale
Lastly sir there are some pens that create trenches/ pest barriers attached or a Little detached from each row of pens within the structure. I noticed your trench is outside or encompasses the whole structure externally rather than within the individual pens. Your thoughts Sir. Thanks
The point of the trench is to isolate and protect the entire pen house from external threats like crawling pests etc. Having one external trench rather than individual trench for each pen is more cost effective because you have more surface area available for your pen construction and less surface area to be plastered
Put it this way, if I built individual trench for each pen, I'll have less than 117 pen on this half plot of land..further making the entire structure less appealing from an economical/financial standpoint.
Perfect explanation. Genius. Thanks bro
@@ROBERTBROWN-cz9wl you're welcome bro
You never speak about snail money
How To Make Millions Through Snail Farming - th-cam.com/video/BS4n4KRXnzg/w-d-xo.html