Pets 'n' Stuff | Showing Off My Babies

"I'm a real animal lover. I adore animals of all shapes and sizes."

Tamsin Egerton

A few days ago I was cleaning out the baby snail tank and giving the cuties their first baths, so I figured I would take the opportunity to take some photos of them. Since I've already spammed Instagram and Twitter with an abundance of snail related posts I thought I'd pick some of my favourite photographs and show off my babies in a blog post too.

If you've been following my blog for a while you'll know I started off with 14 accidental hatchlings. Sadly one, Alice, didn't make it and I've also already rehomed two to a friend of a friend. My hope was to rehome all but two, however oddly enough they're a hard sell. I have a couple more homes lined up for one or two hopefully but it looks like I'll be keeping the rest. Up until this point I hadn't really tried to get to know them or tell them apart because I didn't want to get more attached and then have to say goodbye but now that isn't so much of an issue I figured it's about time I tried. I also thought taking photos would help me learn their different shell characteristics and I can also use them for references. I haven't named all of them yet but now that I'm getting to know them I'll be giving them names. If you have any name suggestions leave them in the comments!

First we have Isabelle. I named this one when I took the photos. I don't know why that particular name came to me. I think it just fit them for some reason. Isabelle is a Jade coloured snail like Agron, meaning dark shelled and white bodied. I had thought all but one would yellow shelled with white bodies but apparently not.

There's a couple with shells like this and I'm a little confused as to how they're going to turn out but right now I think they're really interesting. 

On this one you can see some very light stripes. I'm not sure if these will fade away to a yellow shell as they grow or not. Duro and Violet have had some slightly darker patches on their shells not I don't recall obvious stripes like this. 

I think I'm going to start doing this kind of thing more often with them. Up until now I've been so worried about what services I put them on and what they come into contact with in case there's anything harmful to them on it but I think I need to relax a bit. They enjoy exploring and climbing a lot and I'd like to give them more of an opportunity to do that outside of their tank more.

For a long time this one was the only one I could tell apart because they're the only one with a dark body like Duro and they also had this speckled shell as you can see. I've decided to call this one Spartacus to go along with Agron and Duro. I'm not convinced these little speckles are going to stay but I wish hey would. They remind me of freckles. Spartacus is also one of the biggest out of the babies.

How do people not find these squishes adorable? They're so photogenic too. I don't know how people don't love them.

I'm really happy with the condition of their shells so far. It's inevitable that they'll get scars and cracks here and there but so far they're all looking really good, apart from one that has a slight dent. When I got Violet they were just a bit smaller than these guys and their shell was so crusty and dull. Both Agron and Duro had a lot of shell damage too. Duro looks a lot better because he was smaller and had a lot of new shell growth to make up for it but Agron was bigger so he still has a lot of scarring. 

The photo just below is one of my favourites out of all the ones I took. Which isn't an easy thing to choose. Do you have a favourite? 

This little cutie is one of the smallest out of all my babies. 

See what I mean about how photogenic they are? Thankfully their white bodies weren't too lost on my white desk. 

Finally we have the smallest out of all of my cuties, little Nasir. Nasir is also named after a character out of the series, Spartacus. Agron constantly referred to Nasir's side, calling him 'little man' and such so I figured the name fit this one. As you can see Nasir has a little dent in their shell but it's already healing well so I'm not worried. I'm not sure how it happened but I'm keeping an eye on it. And as you can see it ain't holding them back. 

That's all my babies. It feels weird referring to them as babies now that they'll be 5 months in a couple of weeks. The months have just flown in since I happened upon them, it feels like just yesterday. The other little baby my sister found in her tank is also doing well. I'll take some comparison photos soon if them, these kids and my adults. If you want to read about how I became a snail granny check out this post or if you want to know how I look after these guys then check out this post.