So you don't know what your hermies like or just can't afford fancy 'designer' shells to make your herms happy? Look no further. My guide is here to give you tips on finding inexpensive hermie homes and finding scallop food dishes that are large and appealing.
Section 1- Finding the right shells, the pricey path.
This is the most easy, but expensive way for finding our little friend's homes. At most, and possibly all pet stores near the hermit crab section, you can usually find a display with numerous painted shells for around $5 each. DO NOT BUY THESE. You have know idea where these have been and what paint they used. In other words, it would be like living in your home with no carbon monoxide detector. Besides, crabs are more drawn to natural patterns and not as I call "painted crap." Skip those and move onto the other natural shells. Natural shells are pretty much the opposite of painted. These are often around $3, though a tad harder to come by in pet stores. If you can absolutly not resist the painted shells, at least buy a packedged one. I've seen these available from Crab Island.
Section 2- Food bowls the expensive way
By choosing scallop shell servers, this is one of by far most natural ways. You can buy preglued shell dishes (one shell down with smaller ones glued on top), and you can buy plain scallops. Either is fine, but can be pricey and hard to clean.
Section 3- The price is cheap and quality good. New herm-homes!
The alternative route brings you away from the petstore and into WAL-MART! Or Target. Or K-Mart. Or any place with decorative shells. A simple solution is buy a large selection of decorative shells for the price of 1 brand name shell at the pet store. These shell packs often include scallops too for feeding. Before you introdce these to your herms though, be sure to boil them in conditioned water to sanitize them! If your lucky, the shells come in a wicker basket, so it's two in one hermie entertainment!
Section 4- Branching out into inexpensive specifics
Sure you got all these random shells, but what if you need bigger ones, or more of the same type? Specifics can be found in most craft stores, such as Hobby Lobby. They have many different shells which I will briefly describe.
Jumbo Scallops- Very large and deep scallops about 6 in. in diameter. Great water dishes for small hermit crabs.
Jumbo Shells- Many stores carry conche shells with round openings, ideal for jumbo crabs!
Identicals- For crabs who get into shell fights, make them both happy by buying a pack of 10 identical shells. Boom. Everyone's happy. Good luck telling them apart!
These stores often carry rope netting in the same section.
Thanks for reading my guide! Feedback is welcome. The more positive it is, the more I may want to do another one!
Guide to Shell Shopping and Switches- From homes to dishes
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