A week ago a friend of mine pointed me to an ad of someone selling (selling - for profit, not adopting, not rehoming) hermit crabs on the local animal sell page on Facebook. (Something I had been refusing to join and promptly left as soon as we got home with the crabs. I do not want to see backyard breeders in my newsfeed, I will freaking LOOSE IT...) They wanted $50 for four crabs in rough shape and a handful of cheap supplies. I offered to take them for free if they got desparate - no go. I finally needled my hubby into agreeing to pay the going price for the crabs tonight. I have never had to haggle over hermits before! I got her to agree to $5 each for the three smalls, but she wanted too much for the larger one and claimed that they sold in the city for $45 dollars! Luckily my friend owns the pet shop there and set her straight about the prices and she agreed to $8 for the bigger one. Claimed she'd had them a week. I was really curious about that given that she didn't know how much they cost. She wanted to meet tonight, and after a little bugging hubby ran us the 15 minutes to Walmart to meet with them before he went to bed. Turns out the 'person' I'm dealing with is maybe 13 years old. Mom set the record straight - they had the crabs 3 weeks and got them from some other lady who had them for three months. (Oh, how I have a feeling it was for free...) Given the shells they were wearing and how rough they looked they I know they haven't molted yet. They also warned me that the crabs are nasty with babies and will pinch and not to let little kids around them - they originally got them for their toddler. :crybaby:
Anyway, I paid $23 for all four. I feel dirty. I have to admit I'm one of those adopters who has never paid for adoptees before. (Supplies and tanks yes, but therefore the crabs were free.) I do feel a lot better knowing that they'll have a chance now. No guarantees they'll make it, but they are active and aside from being a little beat up look good. The big girl has a big abdomen and none seem like they're malnourished.
These are the new guys (I'm stuck using the camera on my tablet and either I'm not using it right or it sucks...):
I love this little guy. They said it won't change out of that shell, but going by the picture they posted they didn't have anything else small enough.
The big gal kept checking out the shells that were too small!
And then she went narcoleptic and just slumped in place and didn't more for 5 minutes. Really odd. A little worried about it.
Given that I have no idea what conditions they were in past the photo of the cage they were trying to sell - I think it was a 5.5 gallon and there was a 1/2 inch of barky looking bone dry stuff on the bottom.
- I put them in the 20 gallon molt ISO upstairs for safety. Figure they could use the alone time, and honestly my back is still such a mess that I'm not sure how fast I'll be back to normal and I don't feel like having to fuss over newbies in the main tanks. (Valium is heaven sent for back spasms, or this would not have happened tonight at all. Hey... maybe that's why I agreed to this circus in the first place. 
) Anyway, it took 20 minutes and some screaming, but it went from a completely empty bone dry (dust!!!) vat of dirty sand to a somewhat serviceable crabitat:
And to hold them in, a heavy clay pipe on top:
I am really expecting all four to be buried by morning!
The narcoleptic occurence is quite odd. I do LOVE that coloring though, red leg tips are so hot right now! Indeed.
