What are your crabs eating tonight?

Yum...got any more? :chuckle:

 

Today they're munching on some calendula and chamomile flowers drizzled in honey infused with calcium powder. They also have some sweet potato (I think they're addicted to it, every night I serve it they eat some) and catfish. For fruit there's a fruit biscuit I made with unbleached organic oat flour, cherries, papaya, pineapple, coconut powder, and orange peel powder that I rehydrated with I spritz of water.
I agree about Vicki's site, they've liked almost everything I've bought from her. Try out my site too, I have a couple things she doesn't. It's in my siggy.

 

i would love to start feeding fresh, but what if they burry something and then it starts to mold?

 

I've never had a problem with it,sometimes he drags something out of the food dish,but it never gets far,she never buries anything that I'm aware of.The thing with fresh food is that you cant leave it in for more than two days at a time or it starts to go bad.

 

I put the cut end of an orange in my tank last month for my guys and it promptly disappeared. I cannot find it anywhere :dontknow: i've dug up the sand to see if they burried it, but no luck...i dont smell anything icky from the tank, but i have serious doubts that they ate the whole thing. I'm just out of ideas as to what happened to it & i just hope its not getting all icky and moldy in there.

 

They had a "fruit salad" yesterday with pineapple, apple, kiwi, coconut, grapes, and strawberries. Also, they had some carrot and celery greens along with some bison. Overall, a hit meal. Finally, they liked something I made for them! Yay!
:spunky:

 

I am amazed at seeing what is given daily. Do the crabs eat all of it? Doesn't it make the crabitat stinky?

 

Not really,as long as you remember to take care of it in the morning. :hermzpoo:

 

Compared to when I served only a kibble (homemade and healthy but not too interesting) when I started crabbing, I see my hermies eating way more often. I always have two dishes in my 'tat, yesterday's meal and today's. I take out the meal from three days ago and replace it with a fresh one each day, because my hermies always seem to eat food that's been in there longer more than fresh meals. It works for me and my 'tat is never smelly.

 

Crabbies are have a dry mix (I can't remember where I got the recipe) along with broccoli and some bok choy.

 

Strawberries, green and red grapes, lime pulp, broccoli, celery greens, and quail. An all fresh dinner tonight.

 

WOW! you all feed your crabs so much stuff!!!
Last night my crabs had green apple, stinky dried plankton (that's their favorite), and hermit crab pellets.
Tonight they're having sesame seeds and lots of different kinds of beans crushed into a powder.

 

Never feed Store bought hermit crab food!It contains Ethoxyquin which can cause deformities when molting. :hermzpoo:

 

I give mine about 10 things everyday. Seafood,veggies,seaweed,nuts,seeds,flowers,and fruit, topped with cuttlebone treat and power powder and maybe another powder, with worm castings and live fuji sand on the side. I know its been said that hermit crabs like variety so I give them different seafood,veggies, flowers and so on. I give them something from all of the 10 food groups.I change their food about every 3 or 4 days depending on how moist it gets. I change their water everyday.

 

Ethoxyquin can do more than molting problems - it can kill your crabs. Ethoxyquin is a pesticide that will end up killing your crabs once they ingest enough of it. I don't think I've seen a safe "hermit crab food" pellet out there yet.

Think of it this way - the pellets (if they didn't contain EQ or any other pesticides/preservatives that could kill your crab) are like eating only enriched white bread for every meal of every day. If the bread is enriched enough, you could technically get all of the nutrients you need from it, but would you enjoy it? Of course not! That's how eating pellets every day can feel to your crabs. They much prefer variety. Studies have actually shown that crabs won't eat something they've only smelled in the last 18 hours, or something that they've eaten in the last week. Granted, every crab has its own favorite food that it will always eat, but beyond that, nothing.

I adopted two crabs who were fed a commercial diet (one that was supposed to be "everything your crab needs nutritionally") with some fresh fruit on the side for almost a year. I got rid of their commercial diet and offered them some of the foods I bought from the Addiction store (the store that runs this forum, and no, I have not been paid to say any of this Love you and your store, Vicki!) and they both ate for an hour straight. There was so little food left when they were done that I had to give them more the next morning (usually, within the main tank I go two days in between changing the dry food, but do the fresh food every 24 hours) and they've pretty much cleaned out their bowl every day since. Their old mom said they barely touched their food when she had them.

So please do get rid of that commercial food and give them foods you can find in your fridge! I think pretty much every fruit people eat is safe for them, and veggies except for onions and garlic. Ask your mom if she can save you small pieces of meat that you're eating for dinner (before she seasons or cooks it) and you can microwave it and give it to your hermies. Buy stuff off of the Addiction store - I love the "can I have a taste" packs and some of the other variety packs that Vicki makes. And if you want more information about the 'food groups' that you should try to stick to with feeding your crabs to ensure they have a balanced choice of foods every night, PM me! We're working on developing one over at the Hermit Crab Paradise forum (if you're a member there you can just search for it in the forum - there are lots of posts about it) so we've got tons of information!

 

P.S. most of all the food I give them is from the addiction store.....emmac350, Do you feed your crabs red meat? If you do from the grocery store the butchers at the store sometimes add red dyeor food coloring to make the meat more appealing. Are banana peppers, and jalapeno's o.k ? cause I cant eat them. I have them in my garden and those jalapeno's are hot,hot,hot.The banana peppers are O.K though.

 

My crabs eat a mix of only Addiction store products. I Usually feed them everynight and only put small amounts. I also use a sea shell for treats and fruits and such. I change it nightly as well. They love there foods so much. Had several of the smaller ones molt already, and the color difference has been AWESOME!

 

I am going on vacation for a week. :katertater:
What can I give my crabs that will last for a week?? Any suggestions??? :dontknow:

 

Just put tons of dried food in their bowl. Offer several types of each kind of food (several fruits, meats, seaweed/algaes, etc.) and pile it in. I did that at the end of last year when I was gone Monday through Friday every week and could only come home on the weekends. The crabs did great, managed to molt while I was gone, and came up right as that annoying period in my life was over.

Also, try to get anything that the crabs could put in the water dishes as far away from it as possible. My two ISOed PPs love dumping the moss on the soap dish into their salt water bowl, so if I was leaving I'd take the moss off the soap dish. If they dig around the bowls and throw sand in them, either cover the area under the dishes with a flat piece of rock or get rid of the substrate under it (i.e. if it's on an edge of the tank, push the sand onto the opposite side so there's very little substrate underneath it, but there's deeper sand on the other side of the tank).

 

Thank you emmac350...I'll do that...I have some dehydrated cranberries and mango and I can add some other stuff that won't go bad or buy some for that week I'll be gone...Also, I read the ingredients that are in the pellets that I feed my crabs and it said nothing about Ethoxyquin. I also had a pack of Crabworx hermit crab pellets that I didnt open yet and that one has Ethoxyquin in it (but I never fed it to my crabs). Is it okay if I feel the other type of pellets to my crabs? It's not like I feed them only that. I change their food every night and just sometimes, on top of what I give them (fruits, veggies, peanut butter or whatever!), I just sprinkle some of the pellets. I never give the crabs JUST pelletts. Is that okay for them? Or should I stop? It wouldn't matter if I did stop because it's not their main meal anyways. Thanks :flower: