subject: How Best To Keep Pet Land Hermit Crabs [print this page] If you're new to the world of exotic pets, then taking ownership of a couple of pet land hermit crabs may seen an exciting, yet daunting, challenge. Exotic pets are fast growing in popularity and the adorable and durable hermie is a good place to start if, for example, you live in a one bedroomed apartment or have limited funds to play with.
There are differences between the land hermies that you can take home and regular hermies that you should know about. Essentially, you need to provide an area of substrate, or sand, as well as a reservoir of water that your little land crawling companion can submerge himself in whereas a regular hermie's requirements are a dry tank with just a shallow dish of water.
Although the land hermies are frequently advertised as being cheap, low maintenance pets, you do need to be aware that, as with any pet, there are certain essentials that your new buddy must be equipped with in order to survive, and if you don't have the funds for the initial set up costs, then it is much better to wait until you are in a better position. It is totally irresponsible to purchase a crab or two and then panic as you realise you cannot afford all of the essentials!
If you are new to the world of pet hermies, or is space is an issue, then you are best to begin by keeping an adorable baby land hermie. The reason for this is that larger crabs can sometimes be wary of being handled and will tend to grip onto your clothing if they feel unsafe and also the larger guys can sometimes be aggressive. If you start off with a baby, then you can both get acquainted with each other, and he can get used to being handled. This is especially important if you have children, since a baby's grab nip will not cause any great distress as opposed to being bitten by a large crab.
All land versions of the hermie need access to fresh clean water, which must be free from chlorine. You can purchase drops from pet stores which will effectively treat the water. Although land hermies are naturally born near or around water, you will not have to create a seashore for them but you will have to re-create the temperature and humidity that they would be used to in their natural environment. Basically this means having an underneath heater to keep the temperature in the tank between 72 80o F. Humidity can be achieved by providing a water soaked natural sponge, but you will also need a guage to record the humidity level.
Feeding your land crawling hermie isn't too much of an issue since much of their food can be sourced from your local supermarket. They flourish on a nutritional diet consisting of a variety of foods including meat, fish, vegetable and fruit. They are also partial to snack food such as popcorn and chocolate.
To sum it all up, once you have got past the initial set up costs, owning pet land hermit crabs need not cost a fortune. You are fortunate in that you will not be faced with hefty vet bills nor will you have to pay for worming or grooming. Do everything correctly, and you will have years of enjoyment with your new found pets.
