Meet Sid and Beast

My 9 year old asked me if he could bring the class pets home for the summer holidays, the class pets are two giant African snails!

The process is that each child who would like to look after the pets is given a letter for parents to sign and then all the names are put into a hat and one is drawn out. Kieron failed to mention that it was only him and one other child that actually volunteered and that the other girl had already looked after them in the half term.
It doesn't help that I work in the classroom next to his and the teacher can come and sweet talk me into looking after them for him as he is away over the holiday period either.

Sid and Beast have a lovely little glass tank that is heated. It contains a water bowl, food bowl and soil. They eat all kinds of fruit, vegetables and salad. We have had them a week now and unfortunately Kieron is already bored of looking after them even though it is quite a simple job, so I find myself cleaning out their bowls and feeding them every morning.

Sid is the smaller of the two and likes to get around the tank, he is often upside down on the lid, probably trying to escape!

Beast was obviously given his name because of the size of him and he does freak me out a bit! He seems quite lazy and is often found in the water tray or food bowl.

Here are the two of them munching on a juicy tomato, which they seemed to enjoy, but afterwards there was some very slimy tomato coloured snail poo left to clean up.

The tank has to be cleaned out weekly and I am not looking forward to that job. Apparently while they were cleaning out the tank in class the snails are left to saunter around the classroom tables, well I'm telling you now, there is no way these things are going near my kitchen table!

Have you had any weird or wonderful pets that you've had to babysit?