Part 10: Color Identification for Baby Snails

How to Tell What Color Your Baby Snails Are

           Ok so right off the babies won't have much color. You might see a hue of yellow or green, maybe slight pink or purple. It all depends on what color the baby is going to be as an adult. Each color has its own growth rates, phases, and certain times when you can tell exactly which color it is going to be. Usually shell color slowly starts to appear about 3 days after hatching, although it is very difficult to discern until about a week after hatching. Then it is more obvious which ones have green or yellow and which have purple. Shell color is still very difficult until after the second week. Even then certain colors like Jade, and Wild Color are impossible to tell apart until they reach about 5 or 6 weeks of age, so similar are they. 

          Right off the easiest thing that you can tell with 100 percent accuracy from the moment it has hatched, is the color of the foot. If the baby has black dots and its eyes are dark little dots that you can actively see, (you may need to use a magnifying glass, its a good idea to wait until they are crawling up on the side of the glass), then that baby is going to have a blue or dark foot. If you can't make out eyes, or mouth and it is just a white-ish blob under a shell, then that baby has a white foot. Now even a dark foot will appear extremely light in color. It takes nearly two months for their feet to darken completely. At least mine did. Most likely because I had them in much warmer temperatures. Now I am starting them off slightly cooler. Although not as cool as the "farms" that supply the pet stores. So the foot won't appear dark, but if the eyes are then the foot IS a dark foot. Little white footed guys look like ghosts. Like little shells that move on their own. So difficult is their little body to see. Here are some pictures to illustrate.

Here are two newly hatched babies, only a few minutes old. If you look closely you can see one has a slight greenish hue (bottom) and the other has a slight bluish hue (top). Both have dark spots. This indicates a dark foot.

Here are three newly hatched babies with several older ones. On the little rock are two new babies, the top one on the rock has a bluish hue and the one right beneath it a greenish. An older baby just above the rock is much more green in color. To the left a clear see through baby on some sand. That baby has no spots, so it will have a white foot and since there isn't a hint of color it will most likely have a white shell as well.

In this picture two of those newly hatched babies a day or two later. Already more color is developing in their shell. The bottom one has a slight purple tinge and the top is very green. Notice both have dark eyes that you can easily see. This means they will have dark feet.

Here is an example of the difference between white feet and dark. You can't discern much from the white footed baby, just two tiny antennae, yet you can easily distinguish eyes, mouth, and foot on the dark footed babies. From left to right, a dark footed green or wild color baby, a white footed Gold baby, another Jade or Wild color baby, and last but not least a dark footed purple baby.

Here is a little purple baby. Since it has dark eyes it will also have a dark foot.

An older purple baby (left) about 7-9 days old and a much younger dark footed blue baby (right) about 4 days old.

Here plastered against the glass posing for the picture, are a bunch of newly hatched babies, with several older babies in the background. See the little tiny dark eyes? These babies are only a day old and already I can determine the color of their foot.

                  All right so, the babies in all the previous pictures are part of my newest additions. Escargo's grand children. These are the offspring of Jade, Gold, and Wild Color, parents. Escargo herself only produced two colors, Jade or Green, and Wild color. 11 wild color and 80 some odd jade to be exact. I collected several egg sacs from the Jade offspring and then gave them away. I kept all but two of the wild color adults. I also bought two Ivory or white snails and four more blue. So now I have been gather egg sacs from wild color mothers that have mated with wild color, gold, and blue males. Recently I gathered egg sacs from Ivory, and Blue snails as well. They have yet to hatch though.

                   Since Escargo only produced two colors and both had dark feet I wasn't really able to learn how to discern different colors. Now though I have blue, gold, white, jade, wild color, purple, and possibly burgundy babies. I am rapidly beginning to learn how to tell the difference between colors.

                    Aside from telling right off what color the foot is going to be I have also learned that Blue, Gold, and White snails can be identified by two weeks of age. Blue babies are clear with black dots until about two weeks and you can see a definite shade of blue. White snails you can hardly see. Often I don't see them until I am looking at the pictures I took. They are completely colorless. Gold snails right off have a yellow shell and of course their nearly invisible white foot. Their shells are a vibrant gold color by two weeks and they are easily identified. Jade and Wild Color look very much the same and can't be properly identified until the Wild Color snail begins to darken and the Jade's shell shows its golden color. That happens at around 5 to 6 weeks. Possibly sooner. 

                     As for the purple. I am learning as they grow. So far all my purple babies have dark feet. If your wondering where the purple comes from, its the wild color snails. If you look closely at almost any wild color snail you will notice at least one purplish streak in its shell. Eventually when these purple colored babies grow up I am going to separate them and breed them together.

                      I have also learned that when the babies reach three weeks of age, their eyes turn a bright yellow (only really noticeable on the dark footed babies). Then orange on week four, then they turn their adult red color.

Here you can see the yellowish orange eyes of this three week old Jade baby as they begin to change to the adult colored red eyes.

Here is a Wild Color baby. Its shell is so dark it makes it easy to discern.

Here is a wonderful mixture of colors, sizes, and ages. Left is a blue right on top of a possible burgundy. Then a Jade with an upside down purple just below it. Then a huge white with a possible blue newly hatched baby on top of it. Just below the white is another purple with another newly hatched baby beneath it. The larger babies here are about two weeks with the very smallest only a day old.

Purple baby

A Gold baby taking a ride on top of an Ivory baby

Here you can clearly spot differences in color. The vibrant gold, along with several less obvious blue, and purple and darker perhaps wild color.

purple

To the right is most likely a Jade, but could also be a wild color, directly in the center of the picture is a large blue next to a younger blue baby. Also a very dark one on the bottom, most likely a wild color.

 These guys are on some algae I grew in a separate tank and scraped off and put in this one for them to eat. This picture is before I purchased the 1.5 gallon. The tank got so bad after I put these guys in it that I ended up spending about a week delicately removing them to the new tank so I could clean it.  A VERY tedious and frustrating task! I mean how do you pick up something as small as a pin head without crushing it? I was able to scrape off most of them that climbed onto the glass with the net. The rest I attempted to gently scoop off the bottom with a plastic spoon. I dropped a lot of them back in the water. It was really difficult. Still though, after a week of hunting little babies that I could hardly see off the bottom, I succeeded.

Newly hatched babies up front with older, larger, and more colorful babies int he back.

Here the newly hatched babies are about 3 days old, you can see purplish tints to them. There is also a Gold and an Ivory along with Jade here.

To the far right, blue, then gold in center with a baby purple right below it.

See how you can't make out a face on the little gold baby? But even smaller babies you can see their eyes? Dark feet are much easier to see.

              Well that is it for the color portion. I will be updating and adding more as these little guys grow and develop. I can't wait to see exactly how the purple colored babies turn out. I hope this blog has both entertained and given helpful information. Be sure to check back regularly for updates. I plan on adding new pictures and cataloging the different colors weekly. Thanks so much for visiting!