When you think of small pets, the first things that generally come to mind are mice, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs - anything cute, cuddly and furry. If you are in the market for a small pet, and want something unusual, you might want to consider a hermit crab.

Why would I want a crab, you say? Crabs aren't cuddly, you can't play with them, and all they do is walk funny. Right? Wrong!  Hermit crabs are low maintenance, and easy to care for. They're perfect for small houses, apartments, even dorm rooms.

Yes, dorm rooms. When I was in college many, many years ago, I had a hermit crab named Roger (as in Daltry. The Who was very popular at the time. See, I told you it was many, many years ago.) Anyway, I kept Roger in a big glass brandy snifter-turned-terrarium on my desk. Roger kept me company during all-night study sessions. I liked to take Roger out of his terrarium and let him walk across my desk and over to my roommate's desk. She'd be studying and not paying attention, and Roger would walk over her papers or books. She'd jump, I'd laugh. Good times.

As I was saying, hermit crabs are relatively easy to take care of. Hermit crabs need room to roam, so you'll need a large aquarium or glass case with a lid. It needs to be deep enough so that your hermit crab can't climb out on its own. The enclosure needs to have a lid, because hermit crabs thrive on humidity.  Keep the humidity level up witih daily misting.

The ideal temperature for your hermit crab's habitat is 75 to 80 degrees farenheit. Line the bottom of the enclosure with sand or a coconut fiber-based bedding. If your enclosure is big enough, you could have one area with bedding and one area with sand. Whichever you use, make sure that it's deep enough so your crab can dig and bury themselves.

Hermit crabs eat a variety of things, and most of what they eat you might be able to find in your pantry. Fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, seeds and peanut butter are all good foods for your hermit crab. Occasional treats might include freeze-dried shrimp or fish food flakes. Roger was a sucker for peanut butter. He loved the stuff!

Hermit crabs also need water. Non-chlorinated water. It's better to purify the water yourself rather than use bottled water. Unless you work at the plant where they purify and bottle whatever water you want to use, you don't know how it was purified. You can purchase purifying drops from any pet store that sells fish supplies.  You should use a non-metallic dish; some hermit crabs can have a bad reaction to metal. The water dish should be big enough so that your crab can crawl into it to bathe (who doesn't like a clean crab?), but not big enough so that the crab could drown.

Your crab enclosure should also contain rocks, limbs, those little castles you can buy for fish aquariums - anything that your crab can climb and play on.

The one thing you should never forget in your crab enclosure is shells, a variety of them. Hermit crabs have soft abdomens and no shell of their own. In their natural habitat, hermit crabs search out empty shells and make them their own. As it grows, a hermit crab will abandon a too-small shell and search for a bigger one for its new "home". Pet stores sell empty, natural shells. They also sell nicely decorated ones. I preferred the natural shells, but some people like to make their pet crabs pretty. Make sure your crab has plenty of shells to choose from. Just because you like a certain shell, it doesn't mean your crab will like it too. Since the shell will be their home, it's not uncommon for a naked crab to try out several shells before settling on the perfect one. Hermit crabs pick their shells for comfort, not looks.

Some hermit crab owners have a separate enclosure for the molting process. It's a good idea to have a separate enclosure for molting if you have more than one hermit crab. They probably won't molt at the same time, and it can be a traumatic experience for the crab that is molting.

Hermit crabs are active. If they have plenty of rocks and twigs for climbing, they don't really need additional exercise. However, taking your crab out of his enclosure once in a while won't hurt. Let your crab walk around "outside" for a bit, but if you let him walk on a counter or desk, make sure you're there to catch him if he decides to walk off the edge.