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Hermit crabs question
Does anyone here keep hermit crabs? Through no fault of our own, we now have two of them living with us for a while. My wife has taken on their care with a vengeance as our grandson didn’t do too much other than feed and water them.
Anyway, she has decided they need new shells and is at a loss on where to get them. Amazon shows them but they don’t get very good reviews. We’ve checked PetSmart and PetCo to no avail, as well as a couple of local pet shops. So, any ideas on where to get decent hermit crab shells? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Coupla Martins, coupla Gibsons, a few Taylors, and an Alvarez. "Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind." Twelfth Doctor |
#2
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I know next to nothing about hermit crabs - I do like to watch them scuttling around in tidal pools at the beach - but I know I've seem hermit crabs shells for sale at Chewy.com while looking for things for our more conventional pets.
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#3
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My daughter had a couple, years ago.
We got shells from Michael's. You just have to make sure that they are safe, that is, not treated/coloured with anything toxic.
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Amateur musician, newish to guitars! Larrivee OM03...and representatives of other types! |
#4
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The ocean?
~Bob
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Some stuff... |
#5
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I had no idea that people have hermit crabs as pets. What a terrible idea.
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guitars: 1978 Beneteau, 1999 Kronbauer, Yamaha LS-TA, Voyage Air OM Celtic harps: 1994 Triplett Excelle, 1998 Triplett Avalon (the first ever made - Steve Triplett's personal prototype) |
#6
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I won't go into why my son has had several hermit crabs for the last 1.5 yrs, but I will agree with the previous post about it being a terrible idea. Through my research I've come to find that hermit crabs do not breed in captivity and every hermit crab sold as a pet was taken off a beach somewhere.
Anyway, in an effort to be as humane as possible, I have put in some effort to try and give them a quality of life. Long story short, we buy our food from here: https://www.hermitcrabpatch.com/Default.asp And our shells from here: http://naplesseashellcompany.com/
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#7
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It wasn’t my idea to have them here. We are crab sitting while my son and his family are in a rental house waiting for their new house to be built.
They were a gift to my grandson by another set of grandparents. I would not have gotten them. But thanks for the ideas.
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Coupla Martins, coupla Gibsons, a few Taylors, and an Alvarez. "Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind." Twelfth Doctor |
#8
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Quote:
We did our research and started feeding our crabs fresh foods like many of the forums suggested, but then we had a major fruit fly breakout and had to start from scratch on the habitat. Now I only buy food from the place I mentioned that comes in sealed packages. The shells problem is actually a bit tougher and gets pricey. It is hard to tell what size is right, so we bought a variety. The crabs changed shells quickly, but only one time, so we have a bunch of shells sitting in the tank not being used and I’m not sure if or when they will. Make sure you keep the temperature about 80*F and humidity at 75%+ in their tank. They are land creatures, but still breathe with modified gills that need to stay moist from high humidity. This is a good start to help you take care of them properly: http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com...itCrabCare.pdf
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Taylor AD17e Blacktop Taylor 214ce-K DLX Blueridge BR-40-12 Last edited by anjoga; 03-05-2021 at 02:36 PM. |
#9
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No judgements here, kudos to the OP for attempting to do the best for the creatures who are in his care. I've always wondered about the quality of life for "lesser" beings whose universe consists of a glass sided aquarium or some other type of an enclosure. Reminds of something from a Kurt Vonnegut book, I think it was "Breakfast of Champions". Kilgore Trout was a character who pumped out science fiction stories for magazines. One of them goes...
"Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.” (wonder what the crabs are discussing?) |