Can Snails Repair Their Broken Shells?

Many of us have heard the sickening crunch of a snail’s shell as we accidentally crush them whilst out walking or tidying the garden shed. If you have then you may have wondered if it spells the end for your unlucky garden friend or if they are able to mend their broken shells.

Sadly more often than not the outcome is not good. Snails can usually only repair minor damage to their shells, the comforting tale that snails can ‘move’ to a spare empty shell is just a myth.

Body Armour

Much like our own fingernails, a snail’s shell forms part of its body. Snails are born with their shells in place but at first, the shell is soft and unformed. This soft early shell soon hardens and grows with the snail throughout its adult life.

A close up image of a snail shell.
Can Snails mend their broken shells? 

As the snail grows it produces further soft shell material that hardens to further grow its defensive armour. The snail excretes the new shell material around the opening of its shell causing it to grow in a spiral, widening with the snail’s increasing body mass.

If this shell becomes significantly broken then the snail will probably die. Whilst snails can repair small cracks and holes in their shells, if the break is serious then they will struggle to survive as the shell not only provides protection but also prevents them from drying out.

Human Intervention

In captivity, people have been known to use plasters and even normal sticking tape to hold minor broken shells together allowing the snail to fill and seal the cracks in their shells.

In one extreme case a vet in Israel carried out extensive repairs to a stricken snail gluing it’s shell together.

Other animal welfare articles:
Stop Hedgehogs drowning in your garden pond.
Help is at hand for toads stuck in drains.

62 thoughts on “Can Snails Repair Their Broken Shells?”

    • Snails are not capable of that, it is possible these snails may have instead been embracing each other. The only creature that changes shells is a hermit crab.

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  1. Accidentally cracked my first captive snail. Almost a 1/3still hanging on 2 days later ?(know that seems weird but
    “all Gods creatures…”? ?

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    • I take care of 6 snails and one just cracked its entire shell so I gave it the skin off of an egg to help it I have been through this situation before.
      And spray it with spring water in a spray bottle so the shell doesn’t become dry.

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        • so just spray him with spring water. (make sure it hasnt got detergent in the bottle.) and then coat him with an egg white, and then hes got more chance than the other ones did.

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      • Julia, what skin off of an egg? Have a snail with a crushed shell who is still mobile and eating. Trying to give him/her the best chance. Would appreciate any tips!

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      • I feel so bad I accidentally cracked a snails shell today do I just spray water on its back and put an egg over it? I’m not very experienced with snails 🥲

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  2. I accidentally stepped on a snail a few weeks ago. I took it home, created a terrarium for it, put in mos and a drinking spot (a tiny bowl with a soft sponge that I cut to fit perfectly in the bowl so it doesn’t drown) and a piece of sepia and it’s lived in his new home for a while now. I put in a few sea shells that it uses to sleep in. It’s safe in there and thriving! It’s a vine snail (there are 12 that chose my small back yard as their home. They’re an endangered species.) So, a snail absolutely can survive without a shell BUT ONLY in “captivity”. I use a spray bottle twice a day to mist down the terrarium and the snail.

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  3. I have four garden snails, just had one out and dropped it! What an idiot! I’m not sure if it will survive but the tank with soil ,food and sphagnum moss is very moist, there is also cuttle fish for calcium, also they have a roof tile raised on two coconut halves to hide under, but it doesn’t stop me feeling bad and bloody clumsy

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  4. Reading the above comments gives me beautiful hope in humanity. All creatures are worthy of life and love. Thank you all for sharing your stories.

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    • Just read your reply and I feel the same way. I am not the only person in the world who feels remorse when hearing that cracking sound, following by…?? and then realizing that I had so badly injured this creature. Am going to try to heal … He who cares for the least of things is exalted in the eyes of the Lord. Amen to that.

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  5. I accidentally crushed my snail’s shell yesterday. It’s a very small snail. He went inside the remains. I keep him in a small box with a lot of moisture and near a cuttlefish. Hasn’t moved yet. I feel so bad. I don’t know if he’s gonna make it ???

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  6. Hello. I dropped my pet garden snail and it lost nearly all of its shell. I am keeping it in a soft plastic well ventilated box and he seems content. I will keep going as long as I know it is not suffering pain.Its environment is very moist and has cucumber and leaf veg in. (The snail never liked fruit). It is eating and seems ok. I will pick up some calcium and cuttlefish bone and have another think about the missing shell – it’s not damaged, its practically all gone. Does anyone have any helpful,positive suggestions? Thanks very much. I will not euthanise the snail unless I am certain it is the only thing to do.

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    • I accidentally squished a snail and now half it’s shell is gone (the shell around the mantle area) it’s a baby snail the size of a thumbnail and i couldn’t bring myself to euthanize it so its currently living in my house inside a cup. After reading a forum about a snail with no shell surviving for 3 days I had a bit if hope. It’s been a week now and the snail looks like it has been growing a shell back. It doesn’t look like a shell but it’s shaped like one and he can now hide inside of it. As long as you give the snail somewhere to hide upside-down (they can suffocate without a shell because the breathing hole collapses) i think the snail will live and eventually grow a shell back.

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    • Snails can’t feel pain like humans feel as they don’t have a central nervous system or capable of emotions like vertebrates. However I believe all animals deserve the chance to the life they were given. So lovely to see people really caring. Warms my heart ❤️

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      • This is what Google saus to the question, Can Snails Feel Pain?

        Snails may have opioid responses and mussels release morphine when confronted with noxious stimuli. Both reactions suggest that these animals do, in fact, feel pain. While mollusks don’t have brains per se, they do exhibit some nervous system centralization. They have several pairs of ganglia connected to a nerve cord.Sep 13, 2021
        https://faunalytics.org › can-a-snail-s…
        Can A Snail Suffer? – Faunalytics

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  7. No doubt if you are reading this page you have either accidently stepped on a snail or have found one that has been partly crushed or cracked but not killed. Snails are very resilient creatures and can recover from some pretty bad breaks but it is hard to know which will survive and which won’t.

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  8. I have 18 garden snail and i accidentally dropped one of them and it’s the largest one? hope it will survive it only has a small crack

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  9. My snail just died ?
    7 months ago I found a baby snail in a box of raspberries I purchased at a supermarket. The raspberries were in a refrigerator for almost a week before I opened them and that’s when I found the snail – Gary, he was alive and well. I didn’t know where I could’ve released him so I kept him. I fed him and cleaned his tank regularly. In his first or second month with us, his little shell cracked but we managed to help him heal. He seemed to thrive up until recently when he had another accident… he fell asleep on the wall of the tank and fell.. his shell cracked again and he wasn’t doing well. As he was still moving around a lot, his shell kept deteriorating. In the course of the last week, he was moving significantly less and today morning we woke up to seeing him dead. I never thought I’d miss a snail so much ?

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  10. Yesterday I slightly stepped on a small snail while saving another snail, and his shell cracked—I felt so bad ??? and just went home, but then I searched and found this page, reading that I could tape his shell together to let him mend it, so I walked all the way back with Scotch Tape. He had crawled onto a leaf and seemed pretty healthy, but I bandaged his shell with tape anyway. His shell and the tape were pretty loose, but hopefully he’ll make it now that his shell is fairly secured.
    It’s so nice reading that so many people care for snails and are willing to save them (whereas some people hate snails and try to kill them)! ???? ????

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  11. Thank you everyone for all your comments . I stepped on a snail
    Accidently but it’s still alive … hoping it’ll survive …??????. Such lovely caring people in here ?

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  12. I have one that accidentally had its soft shell broken. I’ve been misting it 3 times a day and placed it near eggshells in a soil filled container at home but it hasn’t moved yet. It still looks moist and will stick to my hand but it hasn’t emerged in 3 days. Will it survive???! ?

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  13. I am currently looking after a small garden snail that’s shell has been completely crushed. It’s not moving at all so I’m fearing the worst but have placed in in a container on some grass/ flowers/ leaves. Will keep putting fresh fruit and veg near it too ? does anyone know of anything else I could try?

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    • I know I have been through this before all you have to do is spray it in a spray bottle that contains spring water in it and spray the snail where the shell was so it doesn’t get dry.
      make sure to remove the pieces of the broken shell so it doesn’t die.
      maybe give it the skin of a egg but freeze the egg in the refrigerator for a day and crack it and peel the skin that is on the shell of the egg and give it to it. And cuddlefish bone will give it some calcium to help it with its shell. and also spray the the grass to keep it damp for the snail and give it some dirt and put it in the oven for 20 seconds to get rid of the bacteria and spread out. moss will also help it because it absorbs water you can buy it at pets smart or online you can try ordering Tropical Green Sphagnum Moss it helps reduce odors, provides necessary bedding for them to hydrate 100% natural here is the link to buy
      ithttps://www.petsmart.com/reptile/substrate-and-bedding/thrive-tropical-reptile-green-sphagnum-moss-54538.html it will help and remember to give it calcium and keep spraying it to help him not get dry. Hopefully this was helpful

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  14. Hi, I have a question. I accidentally dropped a garden snail a few weeks ago. His shell has a big crack in it which I tried to repair but he wasn’t having any of it. Luckily he was quite a small snail in a large shell and seemed quite happy with the home he had left. He is eating with access to calcium in his tank which is kept very moist so he doesn’t dry out. As he is small he has taken to making the crack on his shell his new entrance in and out and so the part of the shell no longer used is turned upside down and just drags along the side as he moved. This wasn’t a problem in the beginning as it was flat but now he is growing new shell the old shell attached to his body is causing a problem and stopping him from moving around properly. This old shell will never be used so I need to cut it off but not sure if the best way to go about it as worried it may somehow cause a crack in the shell that he is using. Any ideas ? If I can get it off I know he’ll survive. Thanks

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  15. I accidentally crushed 2 of my teenage snails they live on their own huge snake plant in my apt and the 2 went down into the holder Ii turned plant around and heard crunching so mortified feel awful I gently put in a plastic container away from Other snails but they wouldn’t sit still they kept climbing out of it so I just put them back on their snake plant leaves and the crawled up and they’re just hanging in one’s playing around in their shells are literally almost off it’s it’s looks really gross so what do I do

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    • I stepped on a garden snail
      in May and made a huge hole in its shell but no damage to its body. I tried to put a covering of skin from inside the shell of a boiled egg and he ate it! I couldn’t find any eggshell with the correct curve to glue it over the hole so I decided to keep him in a terrarium (outside, southern UK). I kept a damp egg box for moisture, cuttlefish for calcium and he favoured spinach and cucumber to eat, although I gave him
      other options too. He didn’t move or eat much for the first week or so, but after that he behaved like a normal snail! Over the months I could see a film developing over the hole, and by the end of September it had hardened but was light in colour. By mid-October it was snail shell colour. It didn’t have the normal pattern or texture but was hard and dark, so I felt that I should give him the option to leave to find a resting place of his choice for the winter. I moved the terrarium near the compost heap and left an escape hole. By the second day he was gone. I wish him well and am so happy that my clumsiness didn’t result in his death!

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  16. My sisters friend Ella dropped a garden snail and now it has a huge crack in it! I don’t know what to do so I put it in a box with grass and left it outside with my other snails. I don’t know how it is doing. A snail habitat is coming tomorrow so I’m going to put it in there. What else can I do to help it survive? It’s a pretty big snail and I don’t know if it will survive. I will take in any options to help it survive. Please tell me how to help it. Thanks

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  17. They CAN feel pain. They have 12 nerves and can absolutely feel pain. Additionally, you can’t know they don’t feel emotions. It has neither been proven nor disproven.

    Snails have every bit as much right to this earth as humans. Moreso, because they don’t possess devious plotting and sociopathy. (Not proven but highly supposable).

    The strong protect the weak if they are truly strong. The weak attack the weakest.

    Much love to all of you except the numpty who had the vast lexicon to write ‘sad.’
    As sad as their verbiage and narcissism.

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  18. Snails need their shells to survive. They are a part of their body that they grow from birth, and without it, they are left without any protection and will die. Take care of our little creatures! Nice blog!

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  19. I respect those of you who have this experience and wisdom that you’re sharing, and the others who have remorse for their accidental encounter with one of these little guys. I was out in my garden today when my mum stepped on a snail. I looked everywhere for its shell, but I couldn’t find it. I’m assuming it was buried under the soil when she stepped down but the body was out. Unless it really was a slug, she really hurt him and I was so upset. She was not bothered by it at all, I tried to explain that I imagine it would be like having your fingernail ripped off of your entire body… I am glad to see that I am not the only person who cares about those little guys. If I can find him, and spray him, does he stand a chance? Perhaps if I find another shell that is empty? I just feel sick about it.

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  20. Found a snail at work yesterday with a large chunk of its shell missing so I assume someone stepped on it. Took it home and have it set up in a temporary home to rehab him. He’s eating a very good diet of greens and a calcium rich paste and he’s getting a good dousing of water every so often. I wanted to ask if anyone knows how long it takes to grow back? I wanna take him back to where I found him ASAP since my household is not a very pro bug place.

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