Shells All

Shells All

Hermit Crab Shells- What's Best For Your Pet

So you have purchased your new hermit crab or little hermie from your local pet store and you have everything that you need; the aquarium, a heater to keep it at the right temperature, some paraphernalia for it to climb over, and some sand for it to burrow. However, you may have forgotten one of the most important things, and that is hermit crab shells! You see in the wild a natural hermie will naturally forage for its own shells, but in captivity you will have to supply these for your new found friend. So how do you know which shells are best suited for your little companion?

When seeking out proper hermie shells it is important to provide a multitude of shells for them to choose from. The land hermies are picky little critters and they will only change shells when they have found the perfect match. This is the same as us humans looking for a new house. We wouldn't move into a house just because it becomes available. We want it to be perfect for us and our family, right! Well it's exactly the same for the little guy. If there aren't enough shells available this can prove stressful on the hermie. Once you get to know your hermie or hermies, you will understand what type of shells they prefer, and you can source accordingly.

As well as variety, it is important to provide differing sizes of proper hermie shells. Your hermie needs to be able to tuck itself right into the shell so it needs to be big enough for this purpose. On the other hand if the provided shells are too large then it will not be able to cling on and move around properly.

Good hermie shells come in all different shapes and sizes as do the openings, so make sure you provide a variety of differing apertures. Again, your hermie will probably stick to one specific type, so try to monitor them. As they trial and test various shells they will know which ones are best suited.

We mentioned earlier that the land hermies are very picky and this goes for the quality of the shells. They do not like shells that are dirty or cracked. So it is very important to inspect the subsequent hermie shells you got closely before you give them to your little buddy.

As far as cleanliness goes, you might need to prepare your shells before giving them to your crab. To do this you will need to boil them for around 5 minutes in plain water to get rid of any bacteria that might be hiding within the hermie's new shells. Put aside and let them cool right down before giving them to your hermie buddy.

A word of warning! One of the latest trends is for pet stores to supply decorated hermie shells. Now although these are great to look at, they are not good for the hermie, This is because the paint can flake off, and can also give off fumes that the hermie might breathe in. Also the painted shell might alter the humidity levels inside the shell thus causing the hermie stress. It is always best to stick with shells that are totally natural.

Hopefully this gives you all the information that you need in order to source quality hermit crab shells. One of the best ways to remember is that a crabs shell is its home! So if you were looking for a new house, you would want one that ticked all the boxes. You wouldn't settle for second best!

About the Author

Tod Schaffer is a Hermit Crab enthusiast who has vast experience of raising Hermit Crabs. For more information about Hermit Crab Shells, Visit Hermit Crabs.

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why do people think that all home schooled children live in shells?

i was home schooled for 2 yr. and i got a lot of flack from my dad and step mom it really made me feel hurt and weird but when i asked my friends that didn't know i was if they thought i was unsocial or awkward in any way they all said no. so basically why do people tend to think home schooled kids are freaks or weird?

Other kids think it's WEIRD because they've never been out in the real world, they're only trapped in their school building. So they think anyone not in that situation by definition must be strange and odd and weird. A lot of them are laughably stunned when they figure out what homeschool CAN be.

Adults have a couple of mindsets.

There's the "It Was Good Enough For Me, And It's Therefore Good Enough For You" crowd, the ones that think homeschoolers are all uppity and looking down on the world. They feel offended and believe that by virtue of choosing a different path, you're passing judgment on their lives and decisions. (Grandparents and new parents are good at playing this game. Anything the new parents do, the grandparents see as negative commentary on the way they raised their kids 30 years ago.)

Then you have the Ex-Football Star and Prom Queen, whose lives peaked at age 17 and have spent every moment since watching their bodies fall apart and experiencing one disappointment after another, and trying to re-live those glory days at every chance. To them, to miss high school is to miss the best part of your life. They can't fathom that it could be different for the rest of the world because it was SO darned great for them. ("You'll miss all the social opportunities!")

You have the people who believe deeply in The System. To this mindset, there is one and only one valid path to achievement and success, and it is plainly laid out for all the world to see. To do anything that deviates from the path (private school, AP classes, high SAT scores, Ivy League schools and doctorates, thank-you-very-much) is flirting with disaster and is only engaged in by the mentally unstable or incurably insane. ("You'll never get into college! What are thinking?!?!? Who the *@!! is going to HIRE you?!?")

And then you have the various assortment of odds and ends who have no experience with homeschool beyond the occasional news headline when some whack-job happens to do something spectacularly bad / stupid / evil and also happens to homeschool. They therefore make an incorrect and illogical causation association that a whack-job homeschooled, therefore all homeschoolers are whack-jobs. (98 percent of felons eat bread. Therefore, bread causes crime!!)

And you'll have the occasional homeschooled freak or weirdo that completely turns everyone off and they say, "He's so screwed up. Homeschooling did this to him." Funny, but I was a freak and a weirdo, and nobody ever said, "She's so screwed up. The public school system did this to her." They all said, "Wow, what a freak," and left it at that. Every segment of the population has freaks and weirdos. It isn't the school system that makes them that way, or their address or the brand of their sneakers or the number of tax forms they fill out. It's just the way the population distribution pans out.

How to: Basic Loading 12 gauge shells with the Lee load all II