Next day. An emergency phone call to Sonya. What were we doing wrong? It turned out that the capping needs to be at the correct angle to work. Ours wasn't.
Once that had been rectified the snails settled down to a more peaceful existance, to eat, drink and be merry. And be merry they must, because before long I was collecting baby "Ninghans" and others, by the hundred. The good food and conditions must have really gone to their collective heads. By the end of the season I had picked up and counted, 36,000 babies. After that we destroyed thousands more!
Fondly counting on just a few hundred babies, I had lovingly prepared a special nursery for them. I covered the entire floor with a little plant called "Babies Tears", transplanted several young lettuce plants for instant food and refuge and it looked beautiful. With great excitement the first few were placed in there, but as the numbers mounted the excitement turned to mild anxiety. Anxiety to something more akin to panic...where now? The next pens where nowhere near as elaborite, believe me! Since then I have become a bit more choosy. This year I saved the largest eggs and destroyed a lot of the ( hopefully ) inferior babies .
Well, as babies will, they grew rapidly, and maternal pride turned to dismay as my 3 - 4 month old babies started to do what comes naturally and the whole cycle started again and seeminly never stopped! Forget about breeding seasons -- I don't think we've ever been without babies in the system.
