The Snail Farm (July 8, 2014)

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So I went to a snail farm! Who knew, right?? When I hear about it I told my family I'd love to see it because I thought my kids would find it interesting. I hope you will too!

Here, the group is gathered as the farmer gives is an introduction to snails and the process of farming them.

(Side note: notice the clothing. It is summer. More thoughts on this later.)

After some explanations we entered the laying room.

This table is full of mature snails. The room is climate controlled and you can see the white feeding trough. They keep the snails in the box by having an "electrical fence" around the edges that will cause the snail to change directions if he gets too close to the edge.

I've cropped the photo a bit so you can see the "fence" at the back and the little peat pots. The snails, when ready to lay eggs, will burrow into the pots to deposit their eggs.

The farmer knows where the eggs are because they look for signs of burrowing. They then empty the pots to harvest the eggs.

This farm prides itself on being organic so the eggs mature in nature. 

It doesn't look like much but that is a  snail field. There is netting to keep birds out and there is another electrical fence. It is not easily seen in this picture but each row has planks of wood placed about every two feet.

Same picture as above but cropped so that the snails can be seen more closely. The snails are harvested by size.

As for preparation for market well... I can't actually tell you that. It was not something shown on the tour but it was discussed. However... By this time the young children on the tour became bored and as all bored children do, they became a distraction which means (a) I wanted to go all mean mom/teacher on them and (b) because my own concentration was shot I missed the rest of the presentation. Thus, the ending is a mystery to me!

On the bright side it began to rain and I got to take a nice selfie and pretty pictures of the country road. 

The end.