RIP Hoshi

[choco]

Some of you might remember that one of my Jades, Hoshi, had a problem recently where she stopped eating for a few days. With a lot of care and fussing, she eventually started eating again and seemed to recover.

Last week, I found mites in the snail tank. There weren't very many, and a good bath for each snail and a complete clean-out of the tank and ornaments with boiling water was enough to get rid of them. Unfortunately, Hoshi seemed to be rather upset by the mites, and while all the other snails were fine again by the following day, Hoshi stopped eating again and became very lethargic. She held on for a few days (becoming more and more retracted in her shell each day) and despite my best efforts to get her to emerge and eat something, she died overnight.

I collected Hoshi from spook, along with my other Jade, Tsuki, towards the end of last year at Leeds station. The snails travelled home to London with me on the train, and while Tsuki is healthy and active, and only slightly smaller than the other snails, Hoshi never really seemed to thrive and remained very small. Nonetheless, she seemed contented and was happy to munch her food, socialise with the other snails, and explore the tank.


I think she had a good life while she was with me.

[laurent]

I'm sorry about that. I know how you feel, even if that doesn't help.

Laurent

[AlienSnail]

Aw that's sad news hun.

It does soend like she had a good life though. She was well cared for.

Sadly some snails just never quite grow well. I find that many of these die off before breeding age, they just appear to switch off.

Perhaps the mites contributed, but really it does sound like she would have passed away anyhow.

Aw xx

[choco]

Mar 23, 2009 16:20:52 GMT AlienSnail said:

Aw that's sad news hun.

It does soend like she had a good life though. She was well cared for.

Sadly some snails just never quite grow well. I find that many of these die off before breeding age, they just appear to switch off.

Perhaps the mites contributed, but really it does sound like she would have passed away anyhow.

Aw xx

Yeah, she was unfortunately just a very small, runty, weak little thing - a typical albino I guess. Even if it wasn't the mites, I think she would have died sooner or later as she just seemed to be very very sensitive to any kind of change or problem. She hadn't really grown at all since I got her from spook, although Tsuki has done OK and is growing pretty well. Hopefully he'll continue to thrive.

[loly]

very sad news,
i actually sometimes wonder if the other snails miss little guys that die?
x hope Tsuki will be just fine