Shells

Although hermit crabs may be gregarious animals, they still need their own private home to walk around in.  This may seem like a simple thing to provide for your crab, but if you really want your crabs to be healthy and happy, you need to do several things.
1. Provide many shells of different varieties. 
    I have crabs who like long and pointy snail shells. i've got some who will wear nothing but a turbo shell. Some of them change shells every day or two and others haven't changed in two years.  It's a matter of personal preference for some crabs, but you need to give them the opportunity to change shells or else several bad things will happen. You crabs will lose the moisture they store in their shells to keep their gills wet if they have too small of a shell and no other shells to try.  If they dry up like this, they're history.  If they are stuck in a shell too big for them or even just the right size, they may be happy with their situation, but not all the other crabs will be. If there are no other shells to try, crabs sometimes pull each other out of their current shells, often resulting in the death or loss of appendages of the newly homeless crab.

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