Two New Crabs and a Pinch!

[w h a l e b o n e]

On Tuesday I got 2 new crabs. I had to drag my mom out to PetSmart because apparently you have to be 18+ to buy live animals. (I know it's not ideal to get them from a pet store but oh my gosh they had some big ones (smaller end of large). I fell in love with this one guy and I think I actually didn't get the same one but oh well. I'm so far naming him Wildfire because he is a beautiful red PP and big.

Plus he burns! I got too confident and the same night I pried him out from his tank (first mistake he was trying to cling onto something) and when I walked into the living room with him he latched onto the fleshy part of my left ring finger near where it connects to the hand. He did not let go. It hurt and my mom noticed I looked like I was in pain and she asked if he was pinching me and I said yes but just sat down enduring the pain and waiting for him to let go. Any efforts to pull him off made him clamp down harder. I was going to sit and suffer through the pain until he let go. It was actually getting to be quite tolerable as the spot went numb. My mom apparently remembered when she was a child and her pet garter snake bit her and wouldn't let go as it had unhigned its jaw and her brother had to help her pry it off. So we unfortunately had to run faucet water over him (I was dying inside that it wasn't dechlorinated) and my mom managed to poke a Q-tip at his claw untl he pinched onto it and let go.

It was very traumatic and definitely broke something inside for a solid few hours as no creature has ever really hurt me and just this panicky feeling I can't explain of not being able to escape the pain. I have definitely learned a valuable lesson about knowing when to leave animals alone.

On the positive side, I took a risk and decided to try again the next day. I know a lot of people are hands off and I suspect there's some reasons... But I personally like to condition them to associating my hand with a reward by feeding them every time they come out and holding them. I'm mostly experimenting with this. I love him and all of his quirks I keep learning about. Speaking of which, I still haven't sexed him, but I hope to soon.

I also got another smaller beautiful PP with black speckles all over. I did manage to sex her (she's a she lol). I don't know why, but the name that popped into my head as I observed and held her was Pigeon, and it seems to suit her so that's her pending name. She's also as big as my other crab, Maelstrom, who will now not be lonely. I think she's down for a molt, but I can't wait to see them all interact. They're definitely all very wonderful with unique personalities! Pigeon's definitely more shy and Wildfire's a lot more curious and loves to crawl behind their cocofiber background and sleep right next to the heating pad. I'm hoping he's not too cold (73-77), but figure it'll even out by summer as it is technically winter anyways.

I heard someone chirping for the first time today, not sure what's going on.

[Overmountain1]

Ha! Funny you mention this.... I finally got pinched by one of my jumbos, too! It wasn’t really in earnest- my son walked up on us too fast, and when he got there I started getting alternating little ‘picking’ type of pinches one claw and then the other. Kinda like they do when they’re sitting on a log and snacking on it.... It was ok the first 4-5 times (-ish lol) but then they got right where the inside of my wrist meets my hand- really sensitive- and pinched hard!! I took them back to the tank of course, and got him to walk off my hand onto my phone long enough to get a good grip without him/her clamping down worse!! Ah! It happens, at least if you handle crabs at all. I only visit with each one occasionally, I try not to let them forget that I’m ‘a good thing’ lol but also feel I’m not always gonna grab them.

(On the left, you can see where the skin broke just a touch- it wasn’t that bad except for where it is mostly- oh well, I did know better but didn’t listen to my gut!)


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