General Feeding Guidelines

I've finally been doing my research project that I've been wanting to do for just forever now! I've been finding where different species of hermie's are located in their native environments (I need to update my distribution map) and then researching the plant life in that area. It's been an interesting project so far. I've only started with one species right now. My research is simply placing some of that safe food closer to certain species of hermit crabs. I'm also finding/looking for some new plants/foods that are not on that list that could be safe too, but they are not tested (that I know of).

Before I post some of my "findings" though, I wanted to post some general feeding guidelines first.

1. Do not serve hermie's from a can. The metals (can) leech into the foods from the cans and some heavy metals are toxic to hermit crabs.

2. Do not serve anything containing iodized salt or high in sugar (corn syrup, starches, etc) that are not a natural part of the food. Iodized salt cannot be processed by a crab... and well... sugar is just not beneficial for anything but maybe getting a hyper crab. HEHE It's a nutrition choice.

3. Organic is best as pesticides (which are designed to kill bugs and hermit crabs are closely related to bugs) will possibly kill your hermit crab.

4. Fresh is best, but dried, dehydrated, frozen and baby foods are wonderful too.

5. Avoid preservatives. There's just not enough information on what a preservative can do to your little crab. Always remember too, these crabs are small. A little bite of a bad thing can do a lot of damage.

6. There's several wonderful sites out there that have done the leg work already on a safe and un-safe food list for hermit crabs. I'd recommend you use them as a definate guideline. (See my side menu of Helpful Crabbie Links.)

While you check out those links, I have some fun stuff I've done to prepare my crabbies a quick treat here on this blog too:

Dry Kibble Recipe
Crab "Cookies" Recipes

Original Research Posts:
Coloration Changes Food Search
Coloration Changes Food Search - pt 2

(NOTICE: The information in this post can change or be updated at any time. I will try to remember to post an update date with any changes I make to this post.... but I may forget. HEHE Just thought I'd let you know that before you took all this as complete.)