Babysitting hermit crabs

At my oldest daughter's school they have a couple small animals in the classroom. Before summer break they held a lottery to see who got to take them until next year. We got "lucky" and won a pair of hermit crabs. One's about the size of a golf ball and the other closer to a ping-pong ball.

They don't really do much. All day they just sit buried under their mulch but at night you can hear them crawling and scratching around. They're both scared of me because whenever I look at them they immediately crawl back into their shells.

They seem pretty simple to take care of - change their food every other day and keep their habitat a little humid. Anyone have any tips for keeping them alive and happy until fall?

I needed a much needed mental image to make me laugh (Hugues scaring off Hermit crabs )

You could call the local aquatic shop and ask for some input... maybe they have special crab food. *Librarian cap on* Better yet, allow me to use google for a second to search... there you go: http://hermit-crabs.com/

Thanks I should have mentioned that the school gave us a bottle of food which looks to be some dried processed fish pellets (yum!). The teacher also said to give them small bits of dried fruit once in a while.

I'll try that link to see what they say - at first glace whoever wrote it seems obsessed with these little guys.

It sounds like the crabs a really little. Are they in some kind of aquarium or something like that? A critter that small could easily wander off and get lost, if not.

Yeah, they came in a little habitat that has a layer of mulch (I was expecting sand) and food & water bowls.

My brother used to have Hermit crabs as pets for a while. He had his in an aquarium tank too but we had it filled with beach sand. We also had a small container of water in there and for food we used to feed them mince, bits of bread and vegies. I must say they are interesting pets but they’re not exciting they only ever do things at night. As they get bigger you can put bigger shells in there and if you’re lucky they’ll change shell. Out of their shell they look like small lobsters because of their tail that folds in to hold the shell on their back when they’re wearing it.

We had a little excitement. One of them molted last week. At first I thought it died because all I saw was the skeleton and there was no trace of the rest of him. Turns out he tucked himself way into the back of his shell until he felt safe to come out I guess.

I would have been really worried if I had found a skeleton of one of the little guys! I didn't know crabs could molt like that. I'm glad he was okay, though.

Well, summer vacation is over and I had to give the little guys back to the school. I'm happy we didn't manage to kill them.

One thing I will miss about them is experimenting to see what they'd eat. I read that they're scavengers and can eat just about anything. Things they really liked were green beans, lettuce, french fries, and pears. Things they wouldn't touch were cheese and blueberries.

I'm glad they made it through the summer. I bet all the kids were happy to see them again.

It sounds like the little guys had quite an appetite, to all that different stuff.