The Life Cycle of a SnailIt helps to know a little bit about the life cycle of a snail as that way you can work out ways to prevent them from laying eggs nearer to your garden plants. So just how do snails reproduce? They actually lay eggs. Look very closely at the photo below and you can see two genuine eggs. (I do not have a photo of slug eggs sorry.) They look like very small milky white shiny eggs. I know I haven’t seen anything so delicate in my garden. There are lots of variables as some snails live a relatively short period of time and others can live for years. They are all different but in the main snail facts for the common garden snail are pretty basic. Snails start out as an egg which is buried in the ground and left After the prescribed amount of time these eggs hatch and out comes a VERY small and VERY hungry baby - along with hundreds of brothers and sisters. They are all mirror image of their parents. They normally hatch quite near a nourishing supply of food and are immediately on the hunt for more as soon as they have depleted those nearby plants.
It is a good idea to have a clear area around your plants as that will deter it from becoming a snail nursery. They often lay eggs under low lying plants and shrubs which will keep the soil moist and protect the young from birds once they hatch. When they reach adulthood they mate and produce eggs themselves - so it begins again. After the life cycle of a snail I need a beer. Coming?
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