Snail farming – what the heliciculture?

SNAILS ARE traditionally the enemy in the backyard – but you might want to consider putting away the blue pellets because the little munchers can actually earn you some money.

What tends to most surprise people about snail farming is that it's the Helix aspersa – the common brown garden snail – that's in demand as edible escargot. Makes you wonder how much you could make just by doing a pick-up around the garden in winter time, doesn't it?

There's a strong Australian market for escargot, and Snails Bon Appetite in the Hunter Valley is currently providing about 2000 snails a week to restaurants and gourmet trade outlets. Their eventual goal is 6000 a week and they're shooting for an export license.

It can be a slimy slope

It's vital to understand what it takes to succeed in this fledgling industry because many Aussie snail farms have failed. Sonya Begg, helicicultural consultant, names the hobby farming mentality as the main culprit – people take it up as a quick earner but don't see it through.

You see, farmers really need to wait out the full biological cycle of the snails which initially takes 12 months to ensure production of consistent-sized snails. Obviously, substandard snails aren't going to be sustainable because they'll damage your repeat business.

Getting on the snail trail

And Sonya says sustainability is the key to making it work. She has done extensive research on, including a trial of, the Italian method of snail farming – free range heliciculture. Her farm is now Australia's leading commercial free-range snail farm.

The profits can be good. With establishment costs of about $27,000, Sonya's trial farm was producing about 37,000 'head' (or should that be 'shell'?) of snail within two years – about $34,000 a year at today's price of $11 per dozen snails. Ongoing costs are minimal.

If you want to use the free range method to build a large snail producing enterprise you will need to:

• Cultivate of small crop pastures of, for instance, silver beet and clover.
• Spend a couple of years of breeding and growing before you reach strong production levels.
• Make a significant time commitment to the tune of 30-60 hours a week in peak seasons.
• Use substantial water. During periods of extreme weather such as strong, drying winds, Sonya says that "around 10,000L of water" can be used in a week. If you live in a drought prone area, this might become very costly.

Helen Dyball, director of the Snails Bon Appetite growers' network, offers an alternative to Sonya's larger-scale free range farming. Helen runs a network of growers who use the enclosure method. She supplies breeding snails to growers who then 'grow them out' in shadecloth igloos and sell them back to Helen's farm. There, they are purged and processed for sale.

Helen's Snails Bon Appetite network contains about 25 growers (in every state except WA at present) who get their initial breeding stock of up to 2500 snails for free from the company. Snails Bon Appetite will supply more snails as your operations grow, and they buy back the snails from the network at 50c a snail.

Helen says that shooting for an income of about $25,000 per year would mean growing out over 100,000 snails (you have to start with double the stock so you've got enough for the following year).

How to become a network grower:

• You can buy DIY igloo kits of varying size and complexity from Snails Bon Appetite.
• You'd need around 350sqm of enclosures to grow 100,000 snails – and you'd have to collect many of your own breeding snails too.
• Snails Bon Appetite provide you with food for a couple of months and pay ongoing transport costs.
• Your snails are purged and processed back at Helen's farm.

So what does a snail farmer do?

If you're a free range farmer, you'll spend your time planting your 'fields' and constructing your purging pod – a dedicated area of tubs with reticulated misting where you feed the snails a purging formula for a week prior to sale. And don't forget the bug bed to attract crop predators away from your pastures.

After purging, the snails are cooked (blanched) and packed in jars or vacuum packs. Preparation of 80 dozen snails for a customer would be what Sonya calls a "very full day."

As a Snails Bon Appetite grower, you'll need to check, water and feed your snails each day, as well as cleaning their enclosures (snail poo!). In particular, you should clean up fruit scraps so you don't have rotten food in there and remove any dead snails. Your other duty is to aerate the soil under the igloo weekly to prevent bacterial disease.

Harvest is similar for both kinds of farming. Selecting the snails can be painstaking as it includes checking their size and hardness of their shells.

With all these options and variables, it would definitely be worth paying for a consultation to find out if heliciculture is right for you – and to this end, Sonya and Helen both offer consultancy services. But if you've always wanted to be a farmer and you don't mind slightly slimy livestock, snail farming could certainly be a fun way to generate a respectable income.

Where to find out more

You'll find more information about become a grower on Snails Bon Appetite's website at www.snails.com.au

Sonya Begg also offers a consultancy service for newcomers to free range heliciculture. Visit her website at www.snailfarming.net

Sonya's report to the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation is a comprehensive read for the aspiring free range heliciculturalist. Available at www.rirdc.gov.au/reports