Hermie is Naked

Our hermit crab, Hermie, is naked. He took his shell off. Claire is very frightened & thinks he is going to die. I thought about asking for prayer for Hermie this morning at Zumba, but decided that might be a little much. Now - let me back up and say that Hermie is our only pet. Claire wants a dog more than anything in the world, but unfortunately I am highly allergic to dogs. Everyone has a different idea of what breed of dog I could have that would be okay for me, but I promise, I have tried them all.

So - last summer I agreed to let her have a hermit crab. I felt this was my best option. I think any of the "rodent" types of animals are freaky. I would die if I pulled back the pillow to sit down on the sofa and a runaway hamster was chillin there. And, I think cats are yucky, too. And lastly, there will never be a reptile or amphibian brought voluntarily in the house. I am not sure why God blessed me with an animal lover for a child, but He did and so here we are. When we bought Hermie, we bought an extra shell. The lady told us that they liked to frequently change them. We had an extra shell in his cage forever, and he never used it, so we finally took it out.

So this morning, I googled this exact sentence "What do I do if my hermit crab has taken off its shell and doesn't have anything on?" I was taken to a website that told me that this was normal. They will dig and dig and dig for a while, then shed its shell. Hermie has been unusually active lately, so that part added up. The website said that he would grow a new shell. I felt way better about the situation after reading that this was normal. However, with the vision of an extremely sad child in my head, I decided I would still head to the pet store to ask some more questions AND buy a new shell just in case.

When I got to the store, I asked the guy who was standing by the hermit crabs about what I had read and he said he had never heard of such a thing. Well - that sent me into a tizzy, so I decided to buy two new larger shells for Hermie - a bright green one and a natural looking one. However, I have to wait until Mike gets home to put them in the cage because Hermie without his shell on is really creepy.

On top of it all, our heat is out downstairs (that is a whole other story that will receive its own post later). It is working upstairs where Hermie is, but it is still definitely colder than normal. I am worried about him being naked and cold. I'll update later with the color of shell HOPEFULLY preferred by Hermie.