cannibalism?

Questions about unexpected problems.
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Chermo
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by Chermo »

krabby_katie wrote:Yeah, it would make me feel bad too. I'm scared of crickets, so I don't know how I'm going to feed them to my gecko when I get him. :| Oh well, I'll try.
Will the gecko eat them all at once if given the chance? I put all the crickets in the tank at the same time I bought them but I only had tree frogs and they only ate when they were hungry not until the food was gone. I bought some cricket food and put a part of a paper egg carton in there and that is mostly where they hung out but with the frog I had to change the egg carton often because of the humidity, I only did about 1/3 of it each time so I had to use a new one every 3 changes. I loved having frogs since I am a frog freak but they just kept dieing so I stopped owning them. 2 of them drowned themselves in a 1/2 inch of water and 1 of them ate a ant after my mom sprayed for bugs in the grass and I didn't know about it and I had him out in the grass jumping around, that was the frog that meant the most to me because I had given it to an ex boyfriend when I was 15 and he was tragically shot and killed and died in my lap one day by his best friend that was showing him the gun and the trigger went off without being touched. His parents gave it back to me to care for and he died also a few days later. I felt so bad about that. I am now 29 and I still think about the whole situation I had to go through when I was 15 and remembered how much it all sucked. I gave up on frogs when I was about 22 when my daughter's frog drowned when we were getting more crickets for him, we were cleaning his cage and added the 1/2 inch of water to the bowl and we left for the crickets and came back to a fat dead frog, that is when I finally gave up on them. Well now that I am older I figured I have been wanting hermies for about 3 years and I finally decided I can care for them and hope they live the best happiest lives, I will get more crabs once I know I will not kill these ones. I mostly wonder if it was just me and frogs or if it is anything small that goes in a tank.
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krabby_katie
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by krabby_katie »

Yeah. I think I'll feed him mostly mealworms though. Cosidering he's only going to be a baby. That's so sad. I'm so sorry. :( Can't imagine what that would have been like.
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Grammarcia
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by Grammarcia »

Besides protein, they should have plenty of calcium. Calcium usually is obtained from eggshells, oyster shells and cuttlebone - the exact same type as in the bird section.

Also, are you sure you have plenty of shells: some smaller, some the same size and some larger for all your crabs?
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Mr.Crab
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by Mr.Crab »

Omg this is so awful. Last time I checked they don't eat each other, and are you sure that was blood coming from the shell? I havn't had anything like that happen to me before. Make sure you feed them correct food and give em calcium in-shrimp,meat,cuttlebone,fruits, etc.
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Jedi_Sena
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by Jedi_Sena »

I agree that diet is the most suspicious factor here, but there is another possiblility. It is thought that sick crabs emit a chemical that signals other crabs to cannibalize so that the sick crab is destroyed before contaminating the entire population. It is just a thought.
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emmac350
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by emmac350 »

If you want to give your crabs fish, I've been told that you can buy fish heads from fish markets/butcher shops for very cheap as they don't have anything to do with them. Then you can place all your crabs on it somewhere other than in your crabitat unless you want it smelling like dead fish. They'll clean it up pretty well, but I've never tried it to find out.
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by Jedi_Sena »

Once I put a dead African dwarf frog in the crab tank and there wasn't a trace of it the next day an dI never found it buried in the sand either so I'm fairly certain that they ate him entirely.
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erikleeson
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by erikleeson »

If you have the heart and stomach for it you can buy like 2 feeder goldfish at the pet store for like less than $1 and just put them in salt water. The fish won't be able to handle the salts so they will die in about a half an hour. Or the crueler way would be to freeze them but in this case they will be tortured for as much as 8 hours. Protein is an important part of a hermies diet, I'd really be upset for myself but I would probably give feeder fish a try. They're gonna die anyways, I feed my hermies meal worms that I kill myself. You could also probably pick some grasshoppers out of your yard and freeze them. Freezing live food not only kills them but also helps eliminate bad bacteria.

The fastest and most humane way is to take a bobby pin and quickly jab it through the brain. Although gross, the fish will die instantly. Its probably more humane than actually feeding it to like a piranha cause the feeder fish knows it is pray when it sees the piranha but here it doesn't see it coming and it dies.

Once the fish has died you have three options, feed it as is, steam, or soak in salt water. Soaking in saltwater attracts the hermies because in the wild the fish come from the ocean. Steaming just cooks it a bit (be sure to use hermie safe water) and feeding it raw is self explanatory. I may decide to feed them a feeder fish if so I will tell you the results.
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Hermie's rule
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by Hermie's rule »

Why is killing animals so gross? My cat eats lizards and stuff like that all the time. I enjoy watching him eat it. :D

Actually since I'm studying Biology in high school, when one of my hermies dies, I just might disect him and study their anatomy. Sounds fun, I know!!! #D
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ladybug15057
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Re: cannibalism?

Post by ladybug15057 »

Not all bacteria, or all insects will be killed/die due to freezing. Some are known to go dormant.
If one opts to gather insects, or plants from outside for their hermies to eat, please make sure there has been no pesticides or insecticides used in the area. (when it rains these can also be washed into ones yard if the neighbor uses them as well)
If one opts to feed feeder fish to hermies, please use extreme caution when doing so. To date it is still not exactly known if any diseases the fish may have could be transmitted to the hermies:

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