Facts You May Not Have Known About Hermit Crabs

Hermit crabs are found both on land and in water. Whether they are land or sea crabs, they are crustaceans that live in a shell discarded by another animal. This article is talking about the peculiarities of "land" or "tree" hermit crabs, not the ocean varieties.

They truly start life like fish and grow into land life. These little crabs start out in the ocean, much like sea hermit crabs. While they're in the water as babies, hermit crabs start out as larvae called zoeae and grow into aquatic crabs, they swim and breathe underwater through gills. As adults, they can no longer breathe underwater, but they still breathe through gills that must be kept moist to prevent suffocation. Grown up hermit crabs have lost their ability to swim.

Their tail shape is set by their first shell. A hermit crab's rear end curves to fit into and hold onto the shell they live in. The shape of their first shell is very important, and will influence shell selection for the rest of their lives.

They "go number one" below their eyes. Hermit crabs excrete urine through glands at the base of their antennae. Which means that they "pee" through their faces.

Their name is a misnomer. Although these animals are commonly called "hermit crabs" they are actually not true crabs because they lack a hard abdomen armor, and they are not hermits, because they live in large groups of about a hundred crabs in the wild.

Hermit crabs have been bred in captivity, but this is not where pet store stock comes from. All pet stock available has been harvested off beaches throughout the world where these animals are native. Most pet hermit crabs in the US come from the West Atlantic coasts.

They have no vocal cords, but they still "talk". These cute little crustaceans make sounds sort of like chirps by rubbing legs together. This is called "stridulating" and works similar to the noise you get when you rub your two hands together. They can be very expressive.

They molt. To grow, this crustacean has to go through process of burying themselves, shedding their old exoskeleton, eating it, and re-emerging. This is called molting, and the whole thing can take weeks. Without somewhere safe to bury themselves for weeks approximately once or twice a year, a hermit crab will die.

Only six of their ten legs are generally visible. Although hermit crabs have ten legs like a spider, they keep the back four inside their shells to anchor them in and keep the inside of the shell clean.

Legs can be "thrown off" without killing the crab. If a crab is stressed or scared, they can "drop" a leg to distract a threat so that they can hopefully get away. They sometimes do this when they are sickly, too. They will grow a new leg back oven the next few molts.

Hermits do poop. Their owners sometimes wonder if they do, because crab poop is small and blends in with bedding materials. These guys either defecate inside their shell and then scoop it out or out the side of their shell.

"Hermies" have long been adored as short-term pets that are easy to care for. Actually, they can live up to 30 years or so in captivity when cared for correctly. Pet stores routinely give poor pet care to hermit crabs, and pass poor pet care information to owners, resulting in short lifespans. As a very misunderstood pet, they have a strong grass-roots following of devotees on-line distributing good care information.

Coping With The Loss of A Pet Rat

For many rat owners, losing one of their best furry friends is a very emotional and painful experience. Often, friends and family might not understand the extent of your grief over the loss of a 'rat'.

What they fail to understand is that you had a deep connection with your friend on a soul level and that they were a close friend, just like a human friend. 

Please take heart and know that many pet carers share this same deep grieving when they lose a beloved animal friend.

Many people have different ways of coping with grief, it is important to allow yourself time and space to grieve in the way that only you can. Sometimes, it is helpful to pay a tribute to your friend through creating a pictorial record of their life or by sharing an obituary on a rat forum.

Do whatever feels right for you to help you come to terms with your loss. Give yourself time before you feel yourself again. It can take me around 2-3 months before I feel mostly recovered from the loss of a ratty friend. Having other ratties to take care of also helps. They can also feel the loss of a close friend, so they need your comfort and presence to help them with their grief too.

What helps me is knowing that these little beings had a wonderful life with me they may never have otherwise had. And also, my own faith in a Conscious Loving Creator gives me a sense that there is no end to life, but only the physical relinquishing of a material form no longer able to sustain itself.

Also, the passing of your present rat(s) also makes room for even more rats to enter your life and enjoy the love and wonderful lifestyle you have to give them.

Many people hurt so badly that they say they don't want another rat(s). Hopefully, after a little time, once over their grief, they will realise that although it was painful to lose their friend, they also had many many hours of joy and fun with them. And so did the rats with them!

In the film 'Ghost' Swayze's character said at the end ' You take the love with you'. And I think that's true. Love is invisible and yet it is without doubt that it exists. Just remember that each one of your rats takes the love back to the Creator and feeds that back into the Universe. It's a wonderful thought isn't it?

You are blessed to have known each one of your wonderful furry friends and they were blessed to have known and shared their lives with you.

Or contact an online pet bereavement counseller.

A book I recommend for the open minded is 'Animals And The Afterlife' by Kim Sheridan. It's a wonderful book with many true accounts from pet owners who have experienced messages or contact with the pets they have lost. This book helped me a lot in coping with loss and the author has been caring for rats for many years that made it particularly meaningful for me.

I have also experienced 'contact' with my rats on the other side of life, and that has made me realise without a doubt, that life continues.

"There is no death, only the relinquishing of a form that temporarily embodied the spirit as part of the play of creation. Essence/Spirit cannot die, it is all around us within everything that comes into being or form. It's the energy that animates our bodies and is the Source of creation. It is that which gives life to the form or being and simply lets go of form when the matter cannot sustain itself any longer due to illness or ageing. For all matter is subject to decay in this third dimensional existence, but life or spirit always Is. Forms will always come and go but Spirit/Life Always Is, Here and Now, Forever and Ever." (Anabrese)

Healing Wishes and Love To You and Your Rats, Wherever They May Be!

Pet Hedgehogs - Buying Guide

When buying pet hedgehogs, there are some important things to look for to make sure you have a healthy animal.

Things to check: 

• Its Nose - your hedgehog's nose should be black and wet, kind of like a dogs. It should not be running and it should not be making "rasping" noises as this may be a sign of a respiratory infection.
• Eyes - should be black and ball like, the eyes should be clear and black, patchy eyes and or cloudy eyes are signs of genetic defects and any hedgehog with these should not be bought. Other signs that the hedgehog is not healthy include, runny, closed, sunken or droopy eyes and any signs of conjunctivitis.
• Ears - Ears should be nice and clean. Your new pet may have little nibbles or chunks out of their ears but this is fine as long as they are healed (sometimes a hoglets they can get a little too close to their siblings and be bitten)
• Weight - They should be "plump" if you look at their belly there should be a little padding and no loose droopy skin, it should also have fine hair and you should see its little chubby pink belly. Which if it will let you touch it will feel soft and a fluffy.
• Legs - Watch your hog have a little walk around, this one is mostly common sense, make sure it is walking as it should, no wobbles or limps or anything like that.
• Responses - A healthy animal will be very inquisitive and interested in anything in its proximity, if you put your hand in front of it, that should be enough to get it around you sniffing and maybe having a little lick. It should also start to "huffle" if it gets stressed, so try picking it up and seeing if it balls up and huffles, this is completely normal for pet hedgehogs.
• Quills - You want to make sure that there are no missing quills or bald patches, often there are broken quills but this is normal as they can be quite rough and tumble, but they are very resilient animals and can handle a broken quill or two.
• Skin - some hedgehogs have little mites at the base of their quills, if they do they will have small scabs at the base, these are easy to see and identify. Never buy a hedgehog with mites.

Testing a pet hedgehogs temperament - there are a few simple things you can do to test that your pet hedgehogs temperament is good and that you get a sociable animal, because nobody wants a moody or shy pet. 

• Pick up your hog and it should curl into a ball and "huffle", turn it onto it's back and see how long it takes to uncurl, a social hog will do this in about 30 seconds, if it does not ball at all then you have an extremely sociable little pet.
• Stroke your hedgehog - Will it let you stroke its quills or its belly? What about its feet? Most hogs will not let you do this without curling up, however if it does then that's a fantastic sign.
• Put it on the floor- When you put it down, a sociable hog will uncurl and start sniffing things almost immediately. Some will curl up and huffle and for a bit but if they do this for around 2 minutes or more then that is a sign that your hog may not be the most sociable.

Hedgehogs As Pets - An Amazing Idea

Are you searching for the perfect pet? Look no further, I have the solution, it has the cute factor, is cheap to buy, is even cheaper to keep, provides lots of entertainment, doesn't take up too much space and did I mention that they are ridiculously cute?

I'm talking about an African pygmy hedgehog, they literally are the perfect pet (in my completely biased opinion). The entertainment provided by these little cuties can last for hours, they are so curious and intelligent that just watching them is entertaining. Whatever you put in their cage will be sniffed, pulled around, licked and combined with other items to create some form of havoc. Mine has realized that if he puts his wheel up against his food bowl he will never knock it over, yet he doesn't seem to care that it makes it ridiculously noisy.

Keeping hedgehogs as pets is an awesome idea, you can pick one up from a good breeder for around £100/ $150, and once you have that initial outlay they cost barely nothing, they eat dry cat food and sleep on wood shavings. Of course if you feel like treating your hedgehog you can buy meal worms or scramble some eggs for them, at a minuscule extra cost. The toys that they play with can be anything from toilet roll tubes to a bit of string tied to the roof of their cage.

The cuteness comes in whenever your hog is awake, they will literally sniff everything you put in front of them, and there is not a cuter site in the world than when they like the smell of something and start licking it. It's ridiculously cute.

There are other things to consider before getting hedgehogs as pets, such as health, quality of breeder, these are things that require an article in themselves but we will deal with that later.

For now though, more reasons why you want one, watching them play with their toys is a sheer joy, my little boy Anderson loves running on his wheel, it is almost as if he knows when you are watching because he will run around in circuits, on his wheel for a minute, around his house, into his tube, over for a drink of water, then around his food bowl and back onto the wheel to repeat the exact same circuit. However when I am not watching, he will run around on his wheel for hours on end.

I highly recommend hedgehogs as pets.