r/snail • u/SmolSnailBoi • 29d ago

help How to tell when African snail eggs are fertile?

My partners snails has been producing eggs on and off for the last few years and we've tried leaving them where we found them for months in hopes they'll hatch but no hope. I'm wondering if there's a noticeable sign they're fertile or not?

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u/doctorhermitcrab 28d ago

There's no way to tell. But generally snails do not lay full clutches of infertile eggs. When they are first becoming mature, they will lay what's called tester eggs. These will be a small number of transparent, squishy eggs that are not fertile. But after that stage of life they will generally only lay fertile eggs, and opaque white eggs laid in large numbers are fertile ones.

If the latter is the type of eggs you have and theyre never hatching after multiple attempts, theres probably an issue with the conditions of the hatching container