My name is Tammy Weick. I started The Crabbage Patch in April 2005 with the help of my husband Kirk. The Crabbage Patch is my outward expression of a 30 year fascination and obsession with what is commonly called the 'Purple Pincher' hermit crab.

Our mission is to help land hermit crabs thrive in captivity. To this end we are dedicated to providing information, education and products that will lead to happy healthy hermit crabs.

It is important to us to educate customers and the pet industry on the proper care of land hermit crabs.  Now more than ever, there is an abundance of information available on the internet and books alike on various ways to keep hermit crabs as pets.  It can be very confusing to a new crab owner to try and wade through all of the information and misinformation.  We encourage you to contact us if you have questions or problems.

We strive at The Crabbage Patch to sell healthy and whenever possible, freshly molted hermit crabs. By selling crabs that have recently molted while in our care, our customers are purchasing healthy hermit crabs that have been kept in the proper environment. 

We have all been in places that sell hermit crabs in less than optimum conditions.  It can be a very depressing experience.  Crabs crammed into a small cage filled with brightly colored fish gravel with only a (dry!) sponge to drink from.  Most of the time the crabs aren’t moving and usually there is at least one dead crab.  Half the time the salespeople have no idea how to take care of them and it’s a rare shop that offers any information on them at all.  Sadly, hermit crabs have a reputation as disposable pets…people buy them and because the crabs have been putting off molting due to conditions they’ve been kept in, they end up dying sooner than later.  Others are told that they don’t live very long. I see and hear it all around me.  Pet shops, surf shops, mall kiosks…Hermit crabs are even won as prizes at the county fair when it’s in town.  A company that represents itself as educational is manufacturing a hermit crab habitat that states in its manual that hermit crabs will only live between 6 to 12 months on average and they are referring to crabs no larger than 3 inches.  Unfortunately they’re right; crabs kept in their set up won’t live past 12 months!  It’s very frustrating to see crabs being sold today under the same conditions they were back in the pet rock days.  The public relies on and trusts the pet industry for accurate care information when buying pets and too many shop owners don’t have correct information to give…instead, they sell books on caring for crabs from the 1970’s and have their own cages set up incorrectly.  The end result is always the same…hermit crabs are dying!

It’s important to buy your crabs from someone who knows how to properly care for them and has kept them in a cage where they are able to bury to molt when they need to.  It’s great to rescue crabs from shops that are not caring for them correctly, but be aware that depending where the crab is in its molt cycle can effect it’s chances of survival.  If it has been putting off molting too long it may not be able to pull through. The key is to provide substrate deep enough and moist enough that your largest crab can completely bury to molt.  Many crabs have been kept in overcrowded cages with an inch of sand or gravel and have been secreting MIH (Molt Inhibiting Hormone) to hold off molting.  Another important thing to provide a rescued crab is a bowl of fresh (non chlorinated or bottled) water and a bowl of salt water (made with a product like Instant Ocean or Hermit Crab Soaking Salt).  Many times crabs have been relying on a sea sponge to drink from and often times that dries out.  Rescued crabs can be severely dehydrated and should have access to both water dishes. They will need to replenish shell water and if they need to molt will spend a lot of time in both dishes storing water and salt necessary to build up hydrostatic pressure used to break open their exoskeleton when they bury to molt.  It is also important to provide rescued crabs a healthy hermit crab food that is in a form that they can eat.  There are some brands available that are hard pellets.  If using a food that you can not easily crush in your fingers, it’s a good idea to run the food through a food processor to crush it into pieces that will be easy for your crab to eat. In addition, provide your crab lettuce, fresh fruits such as sliced apples and grapes, cooked chicken, raw and cooked fish and shrimp…a good healthy assortment of people food that your crab can choose from is especially important when caring for rescued crabs.  Finally, a calcium supplement such as ground oyster shell, cuttlebone or even Calci sand sprinkled on the surface of your substrate is a good idea to supplement their exoskeleton.

Another goal at The Crabbage Patch is research.  We spend countless hours on gathering information about current research pertaining to land hermit crabs so that we can stay abreast of what is happening in the scientific community.  Someday we hope to be able to have an in-house breeding program so that hermit crabs no longer have to be taken from their natural habitats.  Watch for future research articles on our web site pertaining to a variety of scientific hermit crab issues.

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