Can I just go on a little rant about hermit crabs here? Because I rescued one the other day and, sadly, Iâm not sure if itâs even going to survive itâs molt. The way people treat these poor things drives me up the walls.
If you go to any touristy beach spot in the US during the summer months, chances are that along with shitty fridge magnets and T-shirts, every gift shop you walk into is also going to have a cage full of hermit crabs for sale.Â
You can typically buy a âhermit crab kitâ of couple animals, a cage, bottle of nutritionally-lacking hermit crab food and some tackily-painted shells for $30 or less. Hermit crabs are sold as cheap, short-term, low-maintenance pets that will probably be dead by the time your kid gets tired of them anyway. This is what a typical hermit crab cage looks like:
The one I rescued just spent the last four months of his life in here, along with two of his friends, who are now dead as a result.
And this is what a hermit crab enclosure is supposed to look like:
You may notice some differences here. Letâs start breaking them down.Â
The first cage is too small for one hermit crab, let alone three, and it has nothing for them to climb or explore.Â
There is only a single dish for water. Hermit crabs need both fresh and salt water to survive for long periods of time.Â
There was no de-chlorinator sold with this hermit crab starter kit. Hermit crabs are very susceptible to chemicals in their water supply.
There is no heat lamp. Purple pinchers (C. clypeatus) need to be kept between 70-85 F to be happy. If they arenât, your hermit crabs will become lethargic, stop eating, and die.Â
The walls of the cage are made out of wire mesh. That means that the animal is going to dry out. The little humidity sponge thatâs sold with the cage doesnât help. Hermit crabs have gills. If the air they breathe has less than 70% humidity, theyâre in trouble. If theyâre unprotected, in a building with forced heat, they will suffocate in the dry air and die. This is why so many of them die when winter rolls around, and a huge part of why theyâre sold with such a low life expectancy.
There is nowhere for a hermit crab to bury itself. This means the animal cannot molt properly. Purple pincher hermit crabs (the kind I have) molt every 6-18 months, depending on their age, for several weeks at a time. They need to bury themselves in substrate (sand and dirt) to do this. If they canât, they turn pale, curl up, and become completely non-responsive as they hibernate. Even for experienced hermit crab enthusiasts, this looks a lot like being dead.Â
Hibernation can also be induced by stressâ for example, oh, any of the factors listed above! When this happens, most hermit crab owners will assume that their pet is dead and THROW IT AWAY.
Please, please, do not do this to your pet! Itâs still alive!! The man I rescued my hermit crab from the other day had three animals in the cage when it was given to him as a gift this summer. Despite the fact that he thought he was doing everything right, the other two âdied of natural causes.â And so he just threw the bodies away. They might have survived for years if he hadnât done that. And, his mother-in-law, who also got herself a cage of hermies, apparently did the same thing to all three of hers. :(
This is why hermit crabs are sold as short term pets. Not because they have short lifespans, but because hermit crab buyers arenât given adequate information or supplies to care for their pet properly, and the people who sell them know that tourists who buy them are just going to neglect their animals and then kill them.
You may notice that I keep bringing up the âshort-term petâ thing. You might also notice I seem kind of angry about this. Why all the rage? Because the average purple pincher can live UP TO TWENTY YEARS IN CAPTIVITY. Some other species can live for THIRTY.
Hermit crabs are NOT a short term commitment!! If you take care of them properly, these guys will STILL be in your life after youâve graduated from college, gotten married, had kids, gotten old and fat, moved across the country a couple times, and possibly even after your human children have moved out and left you and your crab to be hermits together. TWENTY YEARS. Itâs a pretty respectable lifespan for an arthropod.Â
Itâs not an impossible commitment though. Hermit crabs are easy enough to take care of, and they donât make noise or messes. Hermies are funny, and cute, and more social than people realize. Despite the name, purple pinchers hardly ever pinch. What they do do is follow each other around the terrarium, bonk off the walls like misguided tiny tanks, and fall over each other a lot.Â
Theyâre shy by nature, but they can be comfortable with people if theyâre socialized. I babysat one for six months who used to cuddle up in my scarf and climb my sleeves. It was adorable. Hermit crabs are climbers, and if you let them out of their cage theyâll scale the sides of your couch like itâs mount Everest, and try to join in your movie night by eating a single piece of popcorn. Hermit crabs are great pets.
Which, actually, brings me to my next point⊠Now that Iâve just spent all this time telling you how how great hermies are, and how to take care of them properly, Iâm going to do a complete 180 and ask you to please not buy a hermit crab in the first place. Hermit crabs in captivity canât reproduce. The first part of a hermit crabâs lifecycle is spent floating in the tropical waters of the Bahama islands as a kind of planktonic larva (the technical term is zoeae, and yes, I have recently used that in a game of Scrabble). That stage of the development canât be reproduced in a fishtank. That means that all of the thousands of hermit crabs for sale in the United States every year are captured from the wild. Generally speaking, you shouldnât ever buy an animal thatâs been taken from the wild anyway. But for an species that breeds only once a year, and is susceptible to basically every pesticide ever invented⊠well. There are whole islands where purple pinchers used to be found in the hundreds of thousands, and are now totally gone. :(
These poor babies need a lot of help. If you want to have a hermit crab of your very own, please consider rescuing oneâ there are so many out there in unsafe homes. There are also organizations online that help rescue and re-home crabs. And if you already own one, please research how to take care of him properly. It might be more work than you planned on, but I promise it is worth it!