BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

I bought a mystery snail at the pet store for Cosmo but some of the posts are making me nervous to give it to him. Im afraid of getting him sick. Does it need to sit for 10 days before he can have it?

Mystery snail?

Hi,

I have heard from multiple sources that there are 2 problems with feeding snails to a skink
- Nutrition - You need to feed the snail from a good supply of food for a week or so to "clean it out"
- Parasites - The parasites that inhabit snails can be passed to a skink (or a human) that eats it. You either need to cook (boil) the snail or freeze it. My understanding is that if you plan to freeze them, you need to deep-freeze (0 deg F) for a few days to be sure you kill parasites.

Some people think this is being overly cautious, I'm really not sure. I find it frustrating that there isn't an authoritative source of information on this.

snails are nutricious treats no matter if pre-fed or not, due to the calcium and protein values they come with.

some people tend to mention detoxing snails however, which is an idea that giving a snail proper food for a few days or weeks will at least remove part of anything harmful and imrove nutritional value, pretty much exactly what gut loading insects means but with a modern word for it. it is a popular method and i also tried this, but i didnt have the money to feed the snails....they ate too much.

you may try to freeze or bake snails, i wont stop you but then id recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_pomatia
these tasty looking ones. also suitable for human consumption.

parasites will always be in everything live you feed, be it insects or snails. being cautious never hurts.
take into mind that once you have fed your bluey a snail, you will be at risk of having to do a small vet visit at some point. or it will be all good and no problem at all.
in nature they would constantly be bombarded with parasites like this however.

feeding snails or not is entirely up to you. but i recommend ID ing the snail