Karen Rogers

June 12, 2001 - My First Jumbo Molt

ARGH!!!!!!! I came home from lunch that day only to discover that Twister, my second largest jumbo, had molted. He had NO warnings... NO "signs", but there was a perfectly shed exo(exoskeleton) still intact. and shed all in one piece, perfectly! I must admit. after I calmed down I was quite proud of him for shedding it sooo nicely!!!!

BUT.. in the mean time, I panicked!!!! Jumped on my trusty computer, and frantically e-mailed Carol Ormes, Vanessa Pike-Russell? and Jenn Borgesen for advice.. and of course, the responded promptly with tons of good advice. Mostly importantly... they "held my hand" and walked me through it Got my ISO set up, carefully lifted Twister and his exo up and placed them into the ISO.


Now for some background information so that you will understand why I panicked! I have owned hermit crabs almost 12 years. In all that 12 years, I have never had a jumbo. Or a large crab for that matter! I had only owned teenies, smalls and occasionally medium crabbies, so I had no what to do for this guy!!!! Panic set firmly in.. and so, I decided I would call in to work and tell them I couldn't come back. This was the truth.. as it was my first week back to work after having surgery. I was hurting and extremely tired. I just forgot to mention to them that I was also worried about Twister.


With this being my first jumbo molt, I 'hovered' quite a bit, but he didn't seem to notice! He is now back in the jumbo tank and reeking havoc as usual!

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