OMG I Have Crabs!

This is a post I have been meaning to write for a while as I feel it is a subject that not many people know about fully. I realise it can be quite a sensitive subject. People may judge you or think you're unclean for having such creatures so it goes undiscussed, until now....

***This post contains images some of you may find disturbing***

I would like to introduce you to Mr Crabs....

Enjoying the sunshine in the garden

He was given to the Big One a couple of years ago and, like most things, I have ended up looking after him. He is a Land Hermit Crab and they come from the Caribbean originally. They are scavengers and are mainly active at night. They live along the shore line where they can find food washed up on the beach. They are great climbers and have been found in trees or up walls. 

The "Hermit" in their name refers to them living a solitary life in their shell. They are very sociable animals and generally travel and live in groups of any size.

Our Crab was very quiet and didn't come out or move about a lot when we first had him. Since bringing him downstairs and changing the decor in his tank he is very active and stays out most of the day.

This is inside his tank. It used to be just Eco Earth and two fake rocks with his water bowl. Now I have put stones at one end and gradually inclined the earth so it is much deeper at the other end in case he wants to dig. He loves climbing up the stick and spends hours sat at the top of it. He also loves rearranging his stones and making little cubby holes to hide in. 

Hiding in a hole

Climbing about on the stones

He is a lovely little chap and by far the easiest and least demanding of the household! I put him out in the garden last time we had a hot, dry day and he loved it (top picture). He went scuttling off across the gravel on the flower beds and hid under some poppies for a while. When I wasn't looking he legged it up the path and onto the grass. I had a quick panic when I realised he wasn't under the poppy but soon found him hiding under a few tufts of grass.

He eats anything really, being a scavenger. It is not good for him to have any dairy produce as they find it hard to digest. At the moment he has a bit of pork chop, a grape and some sweetcorn. He also needs calcium in his diet to ensure his exoskeleton stays strong. It also helps them to be stronger next time they moult. He has a cuttle fish bone in his tank all the time and I put calcium powder on his food too.

Crabs shed their skin when they moult. It scared me the first time it happened. I came down in the morning and found a few legs in the tank. I thought he had died overnight. I started to panic about what to tell the Big One. It turned out he had shed his skin and was hiding in his cave! They are very soft and vulnerable when they shed so they hide somewhere safe until their new skin hardens.

They are great and unusual pets that don't have a huge list of requirements. Ours is fun to watch and is always up to something. I would have a crab over a finger chewing hamster any day!