What Do You Feed a Pet Garden Snail?

Most garden snails are herbivores, so they eat plants like plant leaves, stems, bark, fruit, vegetables and fungi. These land snails are low on the food chain, so their diet helps break down vegetation in the wild.

Garden snails can make interesting pets for an easygoing person. Keeping them healthy requires feeding them a wide diet of vegetables, fruits and sometimes plant matter. Snails enjoy nibbling on many of the same foods as humans, including carrots, cucumber, squash, lettuce and fungi. Start with these foods to see of the snail takes an interest.

If the snail is not as inclined to eat human vegetables, try mixing in some plant material. Plant leaves, stems, and soft bark may be more enticing for a wild-born snail.

Some species of snails are omnivorous and eat meat or small insects as well as vegetation, while others are carnivorous, eating other smaller snails.

Snail owners will observe their pets taking very small bites out by scraping it off of the food item. This is done with a mouth part called the radula. A radula is a tongue-like projection that is covered with rows of sharp toothy spikes. These spikes hook into food and pull off a little bit with each scrape. The process may look painstaking but it provides the snail with plenty of nutrients.