HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hi everyone

Hope you are well.
I am doing work experience at The Cuddly Animal Farm( In Perth) and they have hermit crabs in the farm.
They have good care of them. They have two deep water pools with filers and deep sand and natural spells.Also a heat pad on the side.
But they have painted spells and i told them that is bad for them but they told me that it was animal safe paint.

Eit: They feed pellets so... bad
But everyelse is good.

Thanks

Daisy H

I'm no expert but I think of all the bad things one can do to a hermit crab, painted shells is probably not one of the most urgent things to fix. But I would supply similar/larger unpainted shells so when they swap up, they will eventually move into the unpainted shells.

What are filers?

Bubblers? Ok, i will being some shells in.

Can you supplement their diet with items from the other animal's meals? Pellets aren't great by themselves, but offering more variety will help with that. I have no idea what else is kept on the premises, but crabs can eat pretty much anything whole/natural that any other pet or farm animal can have. (ie, not kibble but bits of meat, fruit, leafy greens)