Snail farming?

lightspeed

Hey all, ive been doing some research on snail farming and I think it would be something id have a passion for.

Im wondering though what the market is like and how to source customers?

Its all well and good if i could install the infrastructure required to harvest large amounts but where would I be looking for customers?

I see there are a growing number of snail farms in Ireland and i know its quite labour intensive.

Surely if its just a handful of processors in Poland, there must be less room for Irish suppliers. Id anticipate forming such relationships to obtain regular customers must be the biggest barrier to entry.

jmrc

hear putting tags in their ears is a feck of a job....

lazybones32

A polish guy i know started doing this a few months ago. He reckons we've an excellent climate/conditions for it and they are selling them to french companies.
I can tell you no more because it's snail farming and i don't care to know more.

50HX

The labour is the killer in it..it can soak up to 50% of any returns

patsy_mccabe

It was covered on here before;
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=100797735

From what I gather it is a slow business.








I'll get me coat.:rolleyes:

kurtainsider

It takes ages to hunt them up onto the lorry on mart day.

lightspeed

50HX wrote: »

The labour is the killer in it..it can soak up to 50% of any returns

Any idea the kind of hours required?. From what I read its just a few months of harvesting that is most labour intensive. So id assume most of rest of year is just monitoring and leaving enough feed in the right places throughout the week.

I may be way off on that assumption so im open to correction.

_Brian

Isn’t there a snail farm somewhere that welcomes visitors, maybe it’s in tiemother thread. That would be a place for OP to start.

Again, I can’t undersrand how countries like France can’t produce enough if it pays to import them from a high cost location like Ireland.

50HX

lightspeed wrote: »

Any idea the kind of hours required?. From what I read its just a few months of harvesting that is most labour intensive. So id assume most of rest of year is just monitoring and leaving enough feed in the right places throughout the week.

I may be way off on that assumption so im open to correction.

i think they are harvested in october time but i don't think it can go on for months, my understanding is that it would have to be done in 2-3weeks and that requires a large head count hence the high cost for harvesting

you'd be correct on the remainder of the year once they are outside they should be v manageable

i haven#t farmed any...just stuff i pick up from talking to people so how accurate all of this is is anybodies guess

uck51js9zml2yt

The one thing to remember with snail farming is that you really need to come out of your shell and be able to work at a snails pace..


I'll get me coat!

Truckermal

How much ground would one need?

beertons

This thread is brilliant.