More and more people have started to either keep pet snails or care for their garden snails in recent years and this has resulted in an increase in the number of people reaching out with various questions about what they should be feeding their snails.
Although many snails can do well on kitchen scraps of different vegetables, there are commercial snail foods available that are closer to being nutritionally complete for snails offering a better nutrition profile.
No matter how you choose to feed your pet snail, there will almost always be a deficiency in their calcium intake and although cuttlebones can be an excellent way to top up a snails calcium, many people want a kitchen scrap that does the same.
This is why we see so many people reaching out and asking if snails can eat egg shells or not each month.
As we see so many people reaching out and asking about feeding their pet snails egg shells as well as if there are better options available for increasing a pet snails calcium intake, we have decided to publish this article.
Our hope is that we will be able to help as many of our readers as possible better understand the calcium requirements of their pen snails or the garden snails that they care for and ensure that these snails are getting all of the calcium that they require.
Can Snails Eat Egg Shells?
Snails can eat egg shells provided that you grind the egg shell up prior to giving it to your snails but the majority of snails seem to prefer other calcium sources for their food intake rather than egg shells.
If you are trying to feed your snails a diet based on kitchen scraps then finely ground up egg shells can work but other options tend to be better.
If you do choose to feed the snails that you care for egg shells then you really do have to grind them all the way down to the level where they are close to being dust.
Some snails will still eat egg shells when they are larger but the majority of the time, you will have a much higher success rate of getting your snails to actually eat the egg shells if they are ground right down.
Although grinding your egg shells to be fine enough for a snail to eat it may sound easy, it really can be difficult, especially if you are trying to do it by hand.
Thankfully though, people have came up with a number of different techniques to grind their eggshells up to get them fine enough for snails to happily at them.
How Do You Use Egg Shells For Snails?
You have to grind your egg shell right down to use it as a calcium supplement for your snails.
You can try to crush it with your finger tips but this does tend to be difficult so most people use a cheap coffee grinder or a cheap pestle and mortar as it allows you to crush the egg shell down for snails to eat it with ease.
Unlike other pets, you save a huge amount of money when keeping pet snails due to them happily eating your vegetable leftovers from your kitchen.
This is why some people will purchase a cheap pestle and mortar or a cheap coffee grinder for $10 to $20 as a way to quickly and easily grind their eggshell down to size.
If you do eat a large number of eggs then this can be a good investment as it prevents the egg shell from going to waste. It also quickly work out to be much cheaper than going out and purchasing cuttlebone for your snails too.
That said though, snails tend to love the taste of cuttlebone with the majority of snails happily eating it without issue where as some snails will refuse to eat eggshell even if you do grind it right down.
Should You Use Crushed Eggshells For Snail Calcium Intake?
Egg shell can be an excellent, natural calcium source for some snails provided you grind it down so it is fine enough for your snails to eat. Many snails will simply ignore eggshell even if its right in front of them in favour of other foods that they have available though.
Due to calcium being essential in a snails diet for a healthy shell, we would highly recommend that you try to use cuttlebone for your pet snail if they choose not to eat egg shell.
It is a great source of calcium for snails and our article going over using cuttlebone for snails may be worth skimming over due to the various tips and tricks in there as well as the full breakdown of the benefits of cuttlebone as a calcium source for snails.
There are also a number of specialist calcium supplements for snails on the market that you can take advantage of too if needed.
These can also be a great alternative to egg shell and cuttlebone for getting calcium into your pet snails diet with minimal effort being required.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over if snails eat egg shells or not to an end. We hope that we have been able to help you better understand the advantages of calcium in a snails diet as well as how eggshell can be used to help top up your snail’s diet but cuttlebone is usually a much better option in most situations due the more snails eating it when compared to eggshell.
