Crablog & Menu

Tonight's menu was babyfood, fresh pineapple, frozen krill, seaweed and popcorn all lightly drizzled with organic honey.

Last night tried giving a little organic whole milk but I believe that was overshadowed by the new shells we put into the cage.

A friend from work brought me some new shells from his sister who is also a crabber. Many of the shells were good sizes for the little Ruggies; in fact, there was absolute chaos in that tank last night. At some point I looked in and all the Ruggies were out checking out the shells. Two were in the basket facing off; I believe one of them had already done a shell change and apparently they were interested in the same shell. When I looked they were facing each other with all legs in the air trying to hit one another; that had to be the funniest thing I've seen yet. Our presence in front of the tank distracted them for a minute and the one that already changed did another very quick change right in front of us. It turned around and they started smacking at each other again and then it walked away. The one that stayed in the basket checked out a shell, changed, changed back and then changed back into the new one again. It was having a bit of trouble readjusting and maneuvering but finally got it all fixed and took off on it's merry way. Steph said she sat and watched them until 1 AM. Next time we get new shells to put in there I need to make sure I'm standing by with the camcorder, that whole thing was just too much and I need to get video of all that activity. This evening it appears that one of the smaller PPs decided to get involved too and had a new shell on. When I took out the little dish with the milk I found that one of the Ruggies with the white shells had changed since it left the shell in the milk dish.

Made a trip to Petsmart in Germantown today, I was in the area already and wanted to see if they had any of the frozen silverside fish that I hear the crabs like so much. they didn't have any but I bought some frozen krill that is stored in little ice cube tray things. That was interesting but we'll see if they like that at all. Anyway, we stopped by the crab cages there and it was sad. One naked dead crab in the food dish and Steph found another crab dead in its shell; it looked like that one had been there a while. No lid on the tank and the humidity gauge read 0%. The tank had only colored gravel in it, no sand at all. Most of the crabs were in shells the wrong size too, a bunch in colored shells. Several of the bigger crabs were so big for their shells that they were half out of them; no way for them to protect themselves at all. When I went up to cash out I did mention something to the cashier about their being a dead crab, no humidity and no lid on the cage. She immediately said something to the guy working back there but she really didn't seem to care much at all.

My friend has a 6 yr old daughter that goes to school and the class has a pet hermie. They used to have 2 but one died. My friend is worried about this crab named Sabastian. The school lets the kids take it home on the weekends but the teacher has never given any care instructions to the parents. The poor guy is living in a KK with only a little sand, a cocohut and some food and water. Apparently there isn't any salt water at all, nothing to climb on, no shells (and she says this ones shell is cracked on the inside) and the only food it gets is the commercially produced stuff which really is very bad. My friend even said that once she ran water from the faucet onto it so the poor guy is getting only chlorinated water and that will probably kill it. I printed out a caresheet from one of the sites to give her to take to the teacher so I hope the teacher will heed it and have some compassion for the little one. She also wants me to go to the school and discuss crab care with both the students and the teacher.