Loosing limbs
Loosing limbs in the crab species is very common and sadly is what I get the most emails about. There are three main reasons why a crab looses limbs.
1) The crab is currently or has been previously kept with other crabs. Crabs are very territorial and will often rip off limbs and even kill one another. If the crab is currently being kept with others it must be seperated straight away! Don't risk its life just because you wanted it to be kept with others. If the crab is now on its own the limbs should grow back in around 6 months.
2) Diet - Crabs can also loose their limbs because they are not being fed the right diet. One person that email could not understand why her crab was loosing its limbs but it turned out she was feeding it cheese and bread! Crabs need a lot of protein and calcuim in order to shed properly - its essential. Fish and shrimp (without flavourings or salt) can be brought from aquaruims and is the ideal food for this species.
3) Exoskeleton - This is the hard outer shell. When crabs escape out of their shell during shedding they must do so within a certain amount of time. If they don't escape by the time the new shell hardens they will become trapped and die. Often limbs are lost because the crab hasn't removed its limbs from its old shell in time and therefore they become trapped - the crab has no choice but to rip its legs off in order to survive. Sadly, in this situation you just have to let nature take its course.
The difficult decision then has to be made. If your crab is unable to move its quality of life is non existent. With my crab he lost both of he's back legs and 3 more on one side when the shed didn't go to plan. The back legs are the main legs to keep the crab upright and therefore he could not move and when he tried to he turned upside down in the water bowl and was unable to right himself up. He would have ended up drowing at some point and I decided the most caring thing I could do was to have him put down. Now, there are many horrific ways a vet may suggest to have a crab put to sleep none of which I agree to. The standard injection can be given to the crab in the area where the legs were. The crab will have to have several injections because blood pumps much slower in this species, but they are put to sleep quickly when the other injections need to be added.
Design and content D. Warren
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