Food while gone on vacation?

[HermitCrabAddicted]

I will be leaving on vacation soon, and I will be gone for a week. I have some family members taking care of all of my animals while I will be gone, but I have a question about food for my hermit crabs while I am away. Honestly it comes down to my family is taking care of all my animals and there is a lot to do. They don't feel like cutting up fresh foods and having to do all that with the hermit crabs. I got just a commercial food for them today, and was wondering if you guys think it will be ok for them just for a week while I am away? I don't want to give them this stuff, but I'm not sure what else to do honestly. It's not FMR Hermit crab food. It's this other pellet kind. Let me know your opinions or if you have a better option? Thanks!

[AML]

You can always buy freeze dried fruits, shrimp, and or mealworm then it will be already prepared. Just make sure the fruit is unsweetened and unsulphured.

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[hprmom]

When I was gone for a week last month, and then for two weeks in a row this month, I was blessed to have people who could stop by the house at least every other day to feed the fish and hermit crabs.

I made up a bunch of "pre-fab" frozen meals in plastic baggies (on 6" paper plates cut in half), and stacked the baggies in a container right in front of my freezer.



Since I also keep a separate dry food dish (for leaf litter, worm castings, calcium, etc), I made a second container of baggies (without the paper plates) labeled "hermit crab dry dish" and left that on the kitchen counter. Finally, I made up a gallon each of dechlorinated freshwater and msw. I typed up an instruction sheet (with cute hermit crab and fish cartoons, of course!) and left everything together in one spot on the kitchen counter. All they had to do was remove the two food dishes from the tank, replace them with one baggie each from the freezer supply and dry food supply, and mist the tank. I changed the water the day I left and immediately when I returned, so that they would only have to do one water change mid-week (that's the part I was most nervous about, a flood from spilling!). Except when I was gone two weeks in a row, when I trusted my best friend to do two water changes and replenish the gallons for my niece, who handled the third week.

Even if you only do dry foods, it might help to portion it out in plastic baggies. I figured the less thinking the petsitter has to do, the better! I actually still have a few of my frozen baggies left, I use them for nights when *I* don't feel like thinking!

Hope this helps! I was worried at first but everything went smoothly. And judging by how casually my hermies were all hanging out when I came home, I think they enjoyed NOT having me around spying on them all the time, LOL.

[Rawrgeous]

Great idea. Little to no cleanup, you just pitch it! An idea for when I go on vacation in September.

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[soilentgringa]

I just put out giant bowls of dried food and make sure they have fresh waters before I leave. I've left them for up to two weeks with no issues.

[HermitCrabAddicted]

Yea that all sounds like good ideas. I have a bunch of animals my family will be taking care of while I am away so trying to think of easy stuff for them to do since they already have so much to do.