Dee's Story 2008

Hi, if you are reading this, the chances are you have land hermit crabs and are having difficulty sourcing products for them!

I am only a very recent Hermie owner by proxy! My brother in law bought a starter kit and 4 crabs from a well known U.K pet store chain for my daughter at Christmas. He had looked at all the associated products available in store and felt confident we would be easily able to maintain them.

I then spent literally hours on line finding out as much as I could for these new additions to the clan, and realised quite quickly he had been given dubious advice from the store with regard to their needs and care, so set about the "big tank project" bringing their living standards up to par.

Then in late February 2008, when I popped into the store for a jar of food for them I was horrified to find out they had not only withdrawn the animals from sale (actually I was quite happy about that for the reasons above) but also all the products to enrich their environment, substrates, food, conditioners everything.!

I looked in my local pet stores and reptile stores for specific hermit crab products but drew blanks, this then led to more hours searching the internet, where I realised the supplies in the UK are out there, just scattered about a lot!

It was during this time, when I was a bit fractious that they would die before I found food, that I discovered Pet Antics and other hermie owners in the same situation, the support, advice and experiences of these people was and is incredible and I can now share information about suppliers, tips for caring for the hermies with others, my daughter's Christmas present no longer feels like the living white elephants I really feared they were!

Since then I have had 2 further hermies given to me from some one who felt they could no longer care for them, sadly they must have had poor advice regarding their proper care, I have no doubt they had emotional care as the person looking to re-home them had been very well intentioned but misguided and very sadly one died within days, I think things had just gone too far for him to recover and although I don't know for sure I strongly suspect the decision made to re home them had something to do with the difficulty sourcing food on the high street.

Please access the forum and contact us if you have any worries to discuss we will do our best to help, equally we would welcome you sharing you experiences and knowledge for the benefit of others!!

Regards Dee