Good Shells & Bad Shells

When you get a hermit crab you should at least have 2 different shells for each crab. When you are looking for shells make sure that they are not painted shells. If you haven’t seen a painted shell, you can see them at pet stores. They will usually have a cartoon character painted on the shell. Painted shells are bad because the paint is toxic to them. But you can still find beautiful shells.

I got my shells from Walmart and The Hermit Crab Patch (an online hermit crab store located in Florida). The natural shells are prettier than the painted shells and they are cheaper! But you can also find shells on your own like on a beach.

Hermit crabs need extra shells because they grow to about the size of a softball so they need bigger shells every time they molt. Sometimes they will change shells because they are very picky with their shells, like we would change our clothes.

I can’t wait for the rest of my crabs to change their shells, I’ve recently bought them a bunch of new shells so when they come up from their molt they can see their new shells waiting.

Can you guess how many shells I now have? I’ll tell you the correct answer in my next post.