homing instincts of snails

[jim]

Just listening to the announcement of the winner of the Radio 4 amateur scientist competition which concerned research into the homing instinct of snails. Apparently they can return to their preffered area [your garden/allotment etc.] from a distance of over 30 metres! It's no good lobbing them over into next door, you have to remove them physically for quite a distance.

Hang on there's a guy from down the road furtively tipping the contents of a backet into our hedge! Has he been listening to the same article?

Love and Peace
Jim

[Odsox]

That's interesting Jim, I can see a new hobby coming soon as a cheaper alternative to homing/racing pigeons

I always chuck my snails into the chicken run as I'm pretty sure that my chicken can run faster than snails, mind you I keep finding the beggars so they may well be tunnelling out.

[Green Aura]

I heard a report about that a few months ago, Jim. It did make me laugh!

They had people marking snails and swapping them with their neighbours in one part of the project and in another schoolchildren were marking up the snails they found in the school playground and then taking them home and releasing them (up to 3 miles away) from the school and recording what direction they set off in. They were then going out tracking them to see if they were going in the right direction.

The results at that point were inconclusive but tending towards a positive response. I thought it was a fantastic project .

My own addition to it is to find out how long they might keep coming home - I painted the side wall of the house in September 2007, and painted a couple of snails that tenaciously hung on near the bottom. They were still alive this June when we de-alkanet'ed the flower bed - complete with Dulux Weathershield coat

[oldfella]

Be an ish type, I decided a few years back, to do the French thing, and eat the little sods, so visited, my friend Simone, to ensure that the one I took for her to see was the right species, it was was just a common large brown shelled garden snail.
So for those of you, who have now stopped going "ugggh" and still have some adventure in your soul, you will find the recipe on, www.ehow.co.uk. and search for Prepare snails for eating.

Just try.

[Green Aura]

HFW did it on one of the River cottage programmes - I sort of fancy it, no problems eating snails - but mine have always come out of a tin.

[grahamhobbs]

Having eaten a half dozen of snails in garlic butter in a restaurant once and found them reasonably tasty (well the garlic butter was), I foolishly said to my french friends that I thought snails were ok. Well the next time I was offered a plate of them, not in their shells, but a plate piled high of snails out of their shells - perhaps a hundred of the gristly things! I've kept quite about frogs legs!

[Green Aura]

perhaps a hundred

- mmm, perhaps a trifle excessive. I was thinking more along the lines of half a dozen each!

[Thomzo]

My mum did the same experiment a few years ago. I even wrote about it on this forum, long before this experiment was started. Hmmmm, I wonder where she got the idea from?

At least if you can't get rid of the little blighters, they brighten up the garden.

Zoe

[Keaniebean]

I have to agree with SusieGee

[Millymollymandy]

Ughhhhh luckily we rarely ever see a big snail round here and perhaps that's why you don't see them on menus in Brittany! Gotta be grateful for one thing. Mind you if they taste anything like whelks (plenty of them here - no not in my garden, up on the coast) then double

[123sologne]

Being a true French here (even if very Anglicized), I have eaten snails and will eat more but when I tried to eat the ones from the garden I just found it a lot of messy work, as you have to put them somewhere to fatten them up with lots of lettuce and various other vegs they like eating, clean them up while they are in fattening mode, then you need to move them to another place without food after washing them, so they can then go to sleep, then finally they will go in the pot, and that is far from being simple either... See how it is all done here:
http://eatinggardensnails.blogspot.com/
For my snail houses, I got a large-ish fish tank on Freecycle, built a separation in it, closed the top with some net type stuff and hey presto, I was in business...
The snails were very nice, but I thought it had been a lot of hard work for very little and I abandoned the idea for this year. Snails seam to have come back in the garden with a vengeance !

[Green Aura]

I love whelks too!

You're right 123s - it does look like a lot of faffing for my half a dozen snails!

[Odsox]

Me too, I love whelks but not so keen on snails, although I have eaten them.

When I was at primary school (a couple of years ago) we had a lesson on France and it was mentioned that they eat snails. At break time a girl found a snail and ate it there and then, all slimy and still alive. We, the onlookers were well impressed.
To the best of my knowledge she at least made it into adulthood.

[Millymollymandy]

Great story! Did she progress to slugs (easier to eat)?

[Green Aura]

Surely that would be a retrograde step - slugs are only just up from worms, aren't they?