Forum home› Wildlife gardening

Why do snails climb

pneusticepneustice Posts: 1
in Wildlife gardening
Google has several answers but looking for expert knowledge. Snails found 6feet up walls, under window sills, with no vegetation in site.  Why do they do this.
«1

Posts

  • LynLyn Posts: 21,402
    I don’t know but I keep giant snails in a tank and they climb to the top and shelter under the roof/lid and sleep through the day.
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Mary370Mary370 Posts: 2,003
    To see from on high where the best flowers and veg are!!!
  • FireFire Posts: 17,116
    Some insects have an urge to climb upwards. Often, if you put a beetle on a grass stalk it will climb up. There's nothing up there, it's just an urge.

    Slugs and snails are explorers and investigators. You know there is nothing to eat on the window sill but they don't.

    Or maybe they can smell things that we can't - a trace of bird poo or the trace of a dead slug, moss, insect eggs. 

    They do seem to use energy very inefficiently. I daily find slugs in my side return, where there is zero obvious to eat. It must cost them so much to get all the way down there from the garden. But, as I say, there maybe detritus under the wood stores, or ex-wood lice there that interest them.
  • robairdmacraignilrobairdmacraignil Posts: 692
    Birds seem to be looking about in the garden to eat them a lot of the time and some I heard somewhere are very dependent on snail shells for the calcium for their eggs, so maybe the snails can find good places to hide if they climb and even if they are found they might be more difficult for birds to pick them up if they are above the bird rather than under it.
    https://www.youtube.com/user/sustainableveg/videos
  • FlyDragonFlyDragon Posts: 834
    To get to the other side?

    To get into my wheelie bins from my experience.
  • BijdezeeBijdezee Posts: 1,484
    Because they can  :). Looking for succulent leaves and then tucking themselves away during the day. 
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 33,759
    same reason some folk climb mountains.: because they're there
    Devon.
  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 16,537
    The big brown snails seem to hide in leaf litter in my garden, or under lips of big pots.  The yellow and black spiral ones like to climb. If I find any, I dump them in the middle of the lawn to give the big birds a chance at eating them. If I'm in a bad mood I stamp on them.
  • Nanny BeachNanny Beach Posts: 8,347
    I went into our spare bedroom to close the window,the other night,it's a bungalow, but the window is about ,5 feet up,no veggetation,no plants there or on the room,there was. 3 inch slug on the inside of the window
Sign In or Register to comment.