Hermit Crabs- Mean mothers... maybe someone has some ideas?

[Al Gerhart]

I doubt a treadle feeder will help if there are that many crabs. It would keep the feed off the ground but if the crabs can smell the feed or are smart enough to swarm the treadle even a narrow and distant treadle might not work.

Sound like the hardware cloth is the way to go.

 

[PeaShack]

Ok…maybe I’m crazy for even mentioning this. But there is a huge market on Amazon for pet hermit crabs and hermit crab accessories! Maybe you can sell them as pets (if legal in your area).

Put a kid to good use…instead of a lemonade stand…$1 pet hermit crabs

 

[MROO]

If they're not protected and the chickens will eat them, boil them, chop them and return the shells to the environment for other crabs to move into. They probably don't really need to be boiled first, but a dead hermit crab is much easier to remove from a shell than a live one!

 

[CabritaChicks]

Ok…maybe I’m crazy for even mentioning this. But there is a huge market on Amazon for pet hermit crabs and hermit crab accessories! Maybe you can sell them as pets (if legal in your area).

Put a kid to good use…instead of a lemonade stand…$1 pet hermit crabs

Not crazy at all. Trust me—when we first moved here I was that person:
“Hubby!! There are hermit crabs!! They’re SO CUTE! Look at this one—he’s the size of a baseball! Do you realize what this guy would be worth in the States with its conch shell?!”

Fast-forward to getting chickens, and now it’s just a nonstop stream of creative curse words echoing through the property. Yesterday I literally had to free a tortoise who was completely blanketed in dozens of hermit crabs like some kind of low-budget nature documentary gone wrong.

Fun fact: the moment you get chickens, the things you find yourself researching at 2 a.m. take a very weird turn.

 

[CabritaChicks]

It was a full-on group mission, but as of today the hermit crab population is down a respectable 70-ish percent. I snapped a photo before walking over there, because once they see you, they scatter in slow-motion panic like they’ve been tipped off. I’m calling this a win.

Meanwhile, the 7-week-old chicklets have been upgraded to the main pen, are sprinting between the four feeding stations, big trees, leaves, and are integrating surprisingly well with the adult chickens currently in political power.

Getting the chikclet back in tonight to their mini temporary coop.... sure that will be fun like last night. But I think by spreading the feed out further means they are not as concentrated (and the group mass exodus).

 

[PeaShack]

It was a full-on group mission, but as of today the hermit crab population is down a respectable 70-ish percent. I snapped a photo before walking over there, because once they see you, they scatter in slow-motion panic like they’ve been tipped off. I’m calling this a win.

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Meanwhile, the 7-week-old chicklets have been upgraded to the main pen, are sprinting between the four feeding stations, big trees, leaves, and are integrating surprisingly well with the adult chickens currently in political power.

Getting the chikclet back in tonight to their mini temporary coop.... sure that will be fun like last night. But I think by spreading the feed out further means they are not as concentrated (and the group mass exodus).

I just realized you are in the Carribean. What a beautiful backdrop to experience on the daily! Never too late to start your own Project 365 thread (a daily photo journal).

 

[CabritaChicks]

I just realized you are in the Carribean. What a beautiful backdrop to experience on the daily! Never too late to start your own Project 365 thread (a daily photo journal).

I’m honestly not even sure what those are. I work pretty much nonstop running a rescue and providing veterinary care through a nonprofit, so if this involves keeping a daily journal or logging content consistently… I can’t compete with that.

Everyone thinks the Caribbean is pure paradise, but living here is a whole different beast. Most people don’t make it past two years before evacuating faster than a building on fire. There’s no municipal water, trash, or mail service. Electricity is questionable on a good day (sometimes out for weeks). Food distribution is… unpredictable—pasta sauce today, mysteriously gone tomorrow. Healthcare is a joke, which means flying to the States, because there’s no private insurance here—and even if there were, we don’t have the doctors to use it. Wait time for urgent care at this moment is 21 hours- and you dont often come out of the ER here... fact.

It’s also a massive racket. Just building the shell of a house runs $1,000 per square foot—and that’s without cabinets, fixtures, furniture, or anything resembling comfort. Add hurricanes, no malls, no familiar stores, and zero convenience shopping.

My husband and I live fully off-grid, and even in a three-million-dollar home, you have to accept that there are no creature comforts. It’s basically third-world living unless you’re staying at a hotel- or you arrive temporarily on a cruise ship and they bring you to special places. People here- we accept it, it is our way of life- being a whitey here- racism will cripple most as they even charge us different pricing because we are white). Having lived all over the world (honestly), this place has a huge identity crisis.

So yes—I run the food forest, the nonprofit, and everything in between. On top of that, we haul our own trash in the back of the truck, manage daily survival logistics, and somehow still find time to dodge tourists who can’t figure out how to drive on the left. I mean… it’s literally written on your rental car window.

God I wish we could get amazon or any online deliveries!

 

[CabritaChicks]

So as long as they free-range (which is a giant fenced area- with trees, bushes, multiple feeding stations, etc) then the hermit crabs stay at bay. It is when they are confined (to anyone who will look this up later).

(there are chicks in that photo, and a giant tortoise- lol).

Main is an obese female (Hazel) who eats the crabs! the rest wont touch them.

Hubby is coming in from the sea- they all made a dash when I was trying to determine the hermit crab population around feet when they were napping/meh

Luna and Nova: splash americuana, Scrappy and Smudge: 'Lisa Steeles blue, Willow and Hazel: Cream legbars. So far no toes lost!

 

[PeaShack]

Wow..well as a fellow animal lover and someone who went overboard with bird rescue during lockdown, you have my utter admiration and respect.

Stateside, we only have the cruise and hotel Caribbean experience…I figured it would be expensive to live there but had no idea the infrastructure was lacking to that extent! After reading what you do I can’t begin how much we take for granted here.

The 365 photo journal is just a photo-a day on this site on your own thread. Just nice to see what others experience…but understandably, you are super busy!

 

[Carontheroad]

I’m honestly not even sure what those are. I work pretty much nonstop running a rescue and providing veterinary care through a nonprofit, so if this involves keeping a daily journal or logging content consistently… I can’t compete with that.

Everyone thinks the Caribbean is pure paradise, but living here is a whole different beast. Most people don’t make it past two years before evacuating faster than a building on fire. There’s no municipal water, trash, or mail service. Electricity is questionable on a good day (sometimes out for weeks). Food distribution is… unpredictable—pasta sauce today, mysteriously gone tomorrow. Healthcare is a joke, which means flying to the States, because there’s no private insurance here—and even if there were, we don’t have the doctors to use it. Wait time for urgent care at this moment is 21 hours- and you dont often come out of the ER here... fact.

It’s also a massive racket. Just building the shell of a house runs $1,000 per square foot—and that’s without cabinets, fixtures, furniture, or anything resembling comfort. Add hurricanes, no malls, no familiar stores, and zero convenience shopping.

My husband and I live fully off-grid, and even in a three-million-dollar home, you have to accept that there are no creature comforts. It’s basically third-world living unless you’re staying at a hotel- or you arrive temporarily on a cruise ship and they bring you to special places. People here- we accept it, it is our way of life- being a whitey here- racism will cripple most as they even charge us different pricing because we are white). Having lived all over the world (honestly), this place has a huge identity crisis.

So yes—I run the food forest, the nonprofit, and everything in between. On top of that, we haul our own trash in the back of the truck, manage daily survival logistics, and somehow still find time to dodge tourists who can’t figure out how to drive on the left. I mean… it’s literally written on your rental car window.

God I wish we could get amazon or any online deliveries!

I’m curious, despite this gloomy picture, why do you choose to stay? I’m sure not all Carribean islands are like that, thinking the bigger islands like Jamaica.