*snort* *giggle*

Lets try this again

Hey guys

It's Em

Today, I'm going to be sharing with you my snails

and the story behind one snail in particular

um, called Shrek.

so, without further...

I'm so sorry, I can't...

I'm sorry, snails have faces and they just amuse me so much

UGGGHHHHHH!!!! O.O

Also don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven't already

because I have a TON of amazing videos coming up

and I'm super excited about them and I want to share them with you.

My snails at the moment are having a bath.

I know that it sounds weird, but you should soak your snails.

And they are in a delectable Ex Mint Chocolate Chip....soft scoop....

something or other, which I did NOT devour all alone over the course

of like two movies in one day. ;]

I have someone peeking over the side here!

He- ...OH! Ewww...you've got some grossness on your face!

Come here...

UGH!

Lovely! Just...grime on my fingers right there.

Eghhh xP

I'm wetting my hands because you should never really pick up a snail

with dry hands. It can really damage their skin.

TAAAH! DAAA!!!

This is Shrek!

Oh hello, is that you? I think you're a bit gorgeous aren't you?

I want to give you guys a really good close-up of Shrek.

Hello! Is that you?

I don't really want to keep Shrek on my hand too long even though my hand is wet

because it's just not good for them. So I'm going to try and support him onto

something which is uh quite state-of-the-art.

I would like to introduce you to uh... my lettuce leaf over hee-hee-here.

This looks like how you would receive some kind of trendy street food.

Let's peel it open and... OH! It's escargot!

On the go!

So this is Shrek. Look, I'm just going to put Shrek up to my face,

just so you can get a grasp of the scale of how big Shrek is.

Let- ..Egh! Oh my god, you're huge!

I have an urge to lick her shell but I'm not going to because

I don't really want to catch Meningitis.

This is Shrek, my huge female giant African land snail.

I say female because she laid some eggs for me a couple of days ago

but, in reality, snails can actually be male or female; they're hermaphrodites.

They can change... chop and change if they're going to be

male or female so...um, you know, just because she laid some eggs for me the other day

doesn't mean that she's always been female.

I'm fairly certain that she was a male when she first came to me.

Is that you in the camera? Are you going to be a YouTube famous snail? I think you are.

She's rasping on my finger!

You see my fingers under there? She's licking it gently with her raspy tongue.

AGGHH!

It doesn't hurt, it just feels really weird.

It's like a miniature cat tongue under there just like... stroking my fingertip.

So gross, Shrek, seriously!

*giggle*

Shrek has a really interesting backstory.

Shrek is actually a rescue pet of mine because she was found, not by me,

but she was found, abandoned, by a woman who was driving on the road.

I think it was somewhere down in Kent, which is the South of England.

And this woman came across this crate and pulled over

because it was right in the middle of the road and she didn't want to like hit it

or anyone else to hit it because she was being really considerate.

And she moved it, looked inside, and found a whole ton of baby snails.

Now, baby snails, I will show you one near the end of this video,

but they are so tiny, they can balance on the tip of my finger and

just disappear because they're so tiny.

So she actually took them home and her and her husband raised them.

They would give them baths and they would look after them.

And Shrek grew to be one of the largest.

Not THE largest, but one of the largest out of the clutch that she rescued.

And she just had so many of them and was getting on a little bit in age

and she just needed someone else to take over their care,

so I said that I would take on a couple of snails, which I have done.

And Shrek actually doesn't just live at home with me now.

I have...had* a big vivarium which I used to use for Shrek but...

Don't eat my finger!

But I had to prioritize some other animals coming in.

And at my workplace, we've got the same size vivarium, so I just took her to my workplace.

Now the people who kept Shrek before me were super kind people,

I can't thank them enough for what they did for Shrek and the other snails,

but they didn't have quite the same knowledge that other people who are more experienced

with exotic animals have on how to care for snails and they kind of bred out of control

because these guys can lay hundreds of eggs at a time if the environment is right.

These guys are actually a pest in their native land in Africa because they can actually strip drywall.

They are voracious eaters. They devour things in the right climate

and, unfortunately, there wasn't enough calcium slup....

SLUPLAMENT??

enough calcium supplement being put into their diet, so they started eating each other's shells.

So all the smaller baby snails would climb on to Shrek and rasp away with their tongues.

So let me see if I can show you. So all of this here, that should be nice and smooth.

In fact, I'm going to show you what a healthy snail shell looks like.

This is a healthier snail shell.

This here's Delilah and I actually raised Delilah from when she was absolutely tiny

Again, I don't know if Delilah is technically male or female, I mean she's actually both, really.

You can see her shell is just far superior in every way as compared to Shrek's shell.

And these two are related. Delilah is the offspring of Shrek

and my deceased snail, who's up here. The shell anyway.

This over here is a smaller baby. It's a little bit shy, so hiding.

And then if we want to go SUPER crazy on tininess...

Do you see how tiny this little one is?? *GASP* You're too cute!!

Now these, guys, if you were thinking of keeping them as pets, do bear in mind they do need high humidity.

They do need to have a particular temperature, or you could lose them all. *snap* Just like that.

If you are going to keep them, I would recommend ONE snail. ONE!

Because you put TWO together, and you're keeping them right, the likelihood is that these guys will breed

and when they start breeding, they don't really stop.

Please be responsible. If you are interested in a snail, do your research, set them up properly.

This is the underside of a snail. That's the underside of her foot.

HELLOOO!!!

*background music*

So there you have it, that is my rescue snail Shrek and her babies.

I really really hope that you enjoyed this video.

I also just want to shout out really quickly and say a huge "Thank You So Much"

to everybody that has subscribed to my channel in the last week.

My channel has just kind of expanded in ways that I didn't think it would

and, you know, although the numbers are not in the millions, every single person means so much to me.

Thank you all so much for watching. Please do subscribe to my channel,

I've got some amazing videos coming up for you all.

Have an awesome day, whatever you're doing, and I will catch you in another video soon!

BYE!

*whispers* HEY! Don't forget to Subscribe!