Life span in captivity

[roxanne]

What is the average life span for a pet hermie ?

[emmac350]

I don't think "average" (meaning a statistical mean of the data) is the right term - the number of people who don't take proper care of their crabs would skew the numbers a lot. There are a lot of variables affecting crabs' lifespan, to include their condition at the time of capture, length of time before purchase, etc. My shortest time with any of my crabs was less than one day - we purchased him on Friday evening and he had passed from PPS by the next morning. The longest crabs have been documented to live is 33 years in August - Carol of Crabworks has been blessed with Jon and Kate for that long. Marie (ladybug15057 on the site) has had a number of her crabs over 10 years now, if I'm not mistaken.

[ladybug15057]

9+ years. (anniversary was June 17) And I just heard from CrabWorks today too. She is a little surprised that this coming month (their 33 year anniversary) that neither Jon and Kate are even displaying any pms's. She mentioned they are a little slower right now, but that might be from ole age too? The 'average' for most crabbers seems to be anywhere from 6 months to almost 2 yeas.

[roxanne]

Thankyou for your replys, I have had my crabs for several months, but i had one for only a couple of months, the little guy was missing limbs when i saw him it broke my heart and i didnt want to leave him in the petshop so i brought him, he was going fine when fed a better diet and in living in far better circumstances but he didnt survive when he tried to molt,.

[emmac350]

Sometimes when we buy them because we feel bad for them (awful conditions and/or missing limbs) we don't gauge what their life expectancy is/can be - if a crab is in bad shape when we get him or her, sometimes it's almost a miracle that they survive for longer with us at all. That's the only bad thing about those sorts of crabs that we get - sometimes we're getting one with irreversible damage who we can only make comfortable and hope for the best.