₦airaland Forum

Does anyone know how to plant watermelon?

I want to grow them to feed my snail, seems the juveniles especially love it.

I've planted twice now (of course in my trademark experimental style) and on both occasions they withered about a week after germination.

I don't know if I'm not planting them deep enough; the first set died after 5 days or so and the second set which I dug deeper holes for lived for maybe another four days.

I've planted a new set today and I made the holes almost 7-inches deep.

pdozie:
Clarifications:


[/b]2. Can you share the experience with the pen construction? What is the size of the pen accommodating your 300 snails.[b]

3. have you had any reasons to sell? If yes, would you mind sharing how you cornered the market.

Well-done

NB: I just assembled few snails (about 30 of them) in a bucket. Created holes underneath to pass excess water. Poured sand inside (like 10ck depth) And covered the top with net. Feed them with fruits and leaves (for about 2 weeks now). No death recorded too.
I want to construct a low cost pen for them so I need your input/experience.

Cheers

I picked one AM and put it into an old electric kettle filled with loamy soil. The idea was to observe it (stuff it eats, how long it can stay without water, if it will get lonely and die etc) while I think about my life and the 3.5 million Naira quotation one snail farming "guru" on Nairaland gave me. ** I still have the kettle and I removed about 15 juvenile snails from the kettle a few days ago**

After I convinced myself that selling off a plot of my land and handing over the money to some "guru" for "consultancy" and pen construction is not why I'm such a smart person , I decided I'll try doing as much of the work myself as possible and then pay someone to do anything I couldn't do.

** A little background info for perspective; I was already looking at buyers for one of the undeveloped land I got because I wanted to travel abroad. My mum was against it until finally I accepted to not travel again. Instead I decided to start a business with the money instead but I didn't have a business in mind since it was not my original plan. Then I saw a company that produces snail while I was reading something about how the economy of Greece is beginning to look up after a lot of her young people went back to farming. **

[/b] My First Snail Pen[b]
I found some old wooden windows we had taken out when my dad renovated some houses (the guy stores everything) and I used for of them to make my pen by placing them together to form a square. Found a mosquito net structure removed from another building and used it to cover my pen. It didn't fit perfectly but I made required adjustments. I clean out the soil and replaced it with loamy soil from the bush.

I went snail hunting that night and gathered about 20 snails. I put them in the cage and started feeding them with tye leaves and fruit the kettle snail ate. 100 snails later, they seemed to be doing fine but I decided to build a bigger pen. Details in another post I'll call "do it yourself snail pen construction".

P.S I still have my converted wooden window pen but I also have a much bigger pen I constructed that's much more the first one ( the only money I spent was the N850 or so that I paid for 6 yards of mosquito net). I also have another pen housing about 200 juvenile snails and a converted big paint bucket containing about 100 juveniles.
All the juveniles were born in the "window pen".

** I'll update with pictures when I buy data, my data remain only small now.

Masterclass32:
This behaviour is alien to us.

Okonkwo said the same thing about Christianity just before things fell apart that year.
In other news, welcome to development.

China is still building the trumpet. Damn thing will be blown as soon as they finish.
BTW God did not say our President will disappear like Enoch.

aziaka111:
God every tin u say dat wil happen in d last day has come to pass,remaining trumpet to sound

Uhmm, but what will their genes be doing on earth after they're dead?

Nigerians be worrying about how to continue living after they die since 8818 BC.

[quote author=feelgo=odInc post=58199039]whose going to take care of them when they get old, cats and dogs won't drive you to go and check the doctor when your in your old age. they aren't even rich enough to pay for house girl or house boy for the rest of their lives like rich Americans do, so they won't even leave their genes on Earth before leaving the earth, this their Lesbian thing might be a scam[/quote]

Yoruba demons dey come for all of them, even the one wey want marry sef.

Simple question you people have refused to ask Fani-Kayode.

What was he doing all the time he was Minister of Aviation?
What was he doing all the time him and his co-travelers in the PDP held this nation to ransome?

Why is Fani-Kayode not leading the Yoruba people to demand for an Oduduwa Republic?

Remember say na when mugu fall wise man dey chop. FFK don dey use Igbos as weapon to fight the Federal Government, una no go tell am to go use him own people. After all this secession go work fast if Yoruba people decide say them want go too.

Meanwhile, Nnamdi Kanu is a fraud at best.

1. By "2 years challenge" I mean I'm going to work on this project for the next 2 years.

I've set some targets for myself and I understand that I'll need to undergo a learning curve of say 6 months. If you add the between 13 - 18 months that a snail takes to go from egg to table-size, you'll get roughly 2 years.

After that I'd be able to measure how much success I've been able to achieve.

** I'll address your other questions in a subsequent post.

pdozie:
Clarifications:

1. Topic says 2 years challenge: Are you referring to challenges you will face in 2 years time? Or you intend sharing the experience you had for 2 years already in snail farming [ I ask because somewhere you noted that you haven't lost a snail in 3 months. So I assume you started 3 months ago?]

2. Can you share the experience with the pen construction? What is the size of the pen accommodating your 300 snails.

3. have you had any reasons to sell? If yes, would you mind sharing how you cornered the market.

Well-done

NB: I just assembled few snails (about 30 of them) in a bucket. Created holes underneath to pass excess water. Poured sand inside (like 10ck depth) And covered the top with net. Feed them with fruits and leaves (for about 2 weeks now). No death recorded too.
I want to construct a low cost pen for them so I need your input/experience.



Cheers

BiafraBushBoy:
Because they haven't told them to hurt you..

Wait till they get to mosque and get brainwashed...

My Granddad's uncle was killed by his close Muslim friends!!

All Mooselems are potential terrorists!!

Do you live in the north? Beware...

And because your grandfather's uncle (that's your great-grandfather's brother o) was killed by his close Muslim friends (under circumstances you don't know, assuming it's actually true), you conclude that all Muslims are potential terrorists?

My brother, think about your life.

jabolo:
You perfectly well knew what you were doing which is why you emboldened ..

He answered "...north what!...how can we be afraid of restructuring when we have Boko Haram?"

Any neutral dealer with an ounce of perceptive intelligence would conclude that it was an innocent statement and no need for ...

I have ever since sought to give this proper interpretation, but the more I try, the deeper I was thrown into limbo as to reconciling the sensitivity of the speech. And my wonder has been, was it a slip of tongue? Or an expression of reality.

You are perfectly aware about what febrile environment for war-mongers and bigots this platform is. What is your prize? Front Page? It could also be bloodshed, I tell you.

Apologies if this sounds unduly harsh. I have little patience for those that seek to destroy our country, and their (innocent or not so innocent) enablers. We owe it a duty to our children to be particularly careful and employ every bit of our education and training to beat the negative mongers in these testing times. Or, not to leave them open goals to waltz through.

Thank you very much. He knew exactly the impression he wanted to create and feigning ignorance is just insulting the intelligence of anyone with any sort of commonsense.

Youngadvocate:
My dear, I didn't draw any conclusion. And my perspective was not given either...it was I thought I needed us to discuss

That you didn't grasp the import of a comment as plain as that is the pointer anyone needs.
If you're still confused as to the implication of your "confusion", then the comments should drive the nail home.

OP you see your life?

You have allowed prejudice become your default setting.

What that man said in essence is that the North also is in a bad situation and cannot therefore stand against anything that improves the situation of Nigerians and Nigeria.

StOla:
You interpreted his response based on your own pre-concieved opinion.

He simply means the scourge of boko haram which is reality, is more scary that the unknown fear of the consequences of restructuring.

No matter how you dice it, boko haram terror has more Northern and Muslim casualties than Southerners who are resident in the North.

The Northern leadership condoned it when they felt they would use it as a bargaining chip, only for it to spiral out of control and engulfed their own abode. Same way South East politicians condoned IPOB activities, hoping when it turns to a bargaining chip, they would be prepared to cash in on the political returns thereof, like the SouthSouth politicians did with militancy. However, what the SouthEast politicians did not count on was the Kaduna declaration, that has suddenly made all the blind and deaf politicians and elders from the SouthEast to begin to caution the utterances and activities of IPOB.

They actually tried to use the nuisance created by IPOB as a bargaining chip to get the South East Development Commission, it failed miserably.

Hiberry:
Breeders Snail available @ cheapest price . call 08066107712.

Meanwhile I don't know this person and I strongly suggest you don't buy snail breeders from him.

I'm not saying he's a scam o, I don't know.

I'm an ardent believer in starting small and scaling up, no matter how much resources at your disposal. Of course, small is relative: 1k can be small for me but for you it's 100k. Just start with something that in the case of a drastic failure due to unforseen circumstances (trust me, there's always one at the corner) you'd be able to laugh at your folly and become wiser.

Like most people who have ventured into snail farming, l was flabbergasted when I saw the projections. I kept wondering why we're not all turning millionaires through this venture. The numbers are simply amazing.

If you are reading this then you've most likely seen or heard something like;

Buy 500 breeder snails @ 200,000 (400 a piece)
They'll lay 100 eggs or more in a years.
You'll have 500 x 100 = 50,000 snails in one year
Sell them at 250 a piece and make 250 x 50,000 = 12,500,000 per annum.

At this point, you should be like me and use a trowel to collect the salt you'd be taking the above information with.

Truth is: that scenario is very possible but...

Let's just say it's easier to grow your twitter followers to 12.5 million.

The important thing to note is that if you are not passionate about it, stick to doing it for fun.

Don't turn snail farming into Nairabet or Merry bet, the odds are on you being disappointed.

One of the questions to which I could not find a good answer while I was doing my research is snail predators.

Yes, I got the usual rats, lizards, ants, snakes, etc but I couldn't imagine any of these things posing a serious challenge to my investment (except the soldier-ants, that is).

So I decided to closely monitor my snails and find out what led to the death of a snail (if it happens). I'm happy to announce that 3 months and almost 300 snails later, not one snail has died.

P.S the last sentence does not include the snail hatchling (I'll write about that soon).

We've a small plantain farm at the backyard and that's where I ventured in my bid to find snail predators.

[Enter Predator Snails] * I think I coined this name
One thing that came close to making sense to me as per the natural enemies of snails is the Assassin snail. Only problem was I had never seen it in my life (and I've lived on this planet a long time). After trying and failing to see any mention of it locally (as in Africa) I assumed it was only Europe - since it was only them that mentioned it.

But a few days ago I found a green snail. It was longer than usual and on closer examination I found that the mouth area was also different. The first time I saw this snail I was actually fascinated (I was even thinking I might have discovered a new specie of snail). After taking a couple of pictures I killed the damn thing (my guts told me it was no good but now I'm thinking it was the typical African man mentality of being scared of unfamiliar stuff).

Then yesterday I chanced upon the green snail again and this time I saw it eating a small achatina achatina. (I didn't have my camera then, so no picture).

So, dear snail farmer or aspiring snail farmer, kill the (green) predator snail anywhere you see it!!!! It's a sacred duty that you owe other snail farmers.

** snail shell remains in the last picture is what was left of the snail eaten by the small green predator snail.

** I just found out that these things can be lethal. Good thing they're easy to spot.

domack99:
Hi guys,

Sincerely I have all resources to start this snail farming, have excess of two and half acres that I can plant pawpaw and melon that can be use to feed these snails, but I really have a concern on how lucrative and viability of this snail farming. Unlike chicken and goat meat that is consume by every tom, dick and harry, you hardly see snails in home for consumption.

Also most people I have discussed with and those that claim to be expert in the business are more interested in either consultancy fee, constructing snail house with ridiculous amount or to sell e-book and when I see things like this I tend to doubt and question the profitability of the business itself.

If there is anyone into this business in Snail farming in Lagos, Ogun or Ibadan axis to PM me please. or drop contact.

Lol.
Same thing happened to me o. Contacted a couple of these snail farming "gurus" and I almost dropped the idea.

They were more concerned with consultancy fees or building my snail pen @ 3.5 million naira (actually, it was the guy they call Collins that sent me the quotation).

I will advise you take time to learn about the whole thing, probably start with a very small pen and then scale up as your expertise and resources permit.

Me, I started 3 months ago with 1 pen containing about 100 snails I personally picked from my backyard and today I have grown more than I anticipated.

�
The image attached is a snail egg hatching.

Had to show you that because I know you have never seen it

I will be using this thread to journal my personal journey to becoming a millionaire snail farmer

The method I used cost me practically nothing to start!!!!

I'll be updating this thread as much as possible but please I urge everyone who'll be following to bear with me as I'll be resuming school at Veritas University, Abuja by September and may have to wait until the holidays before making new posts.

You're welcome.