HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I took a stab at making powdered fruits last week in our dehydrator. Last time We tried drying out whole berries and felt it was only partially successful.

This last batch turned out great! I purchased organic raspberries, blueberries, and apples from Aldi's to use. Sorry I was having phone/camera issues so I don't have a good step by step pictures.

I started by lining the trays of the dehydrator with parchment paper. Then wiped the paper with coconut oil.
Then mashing the berries and apple into a pulp using a mortar and pestle.
I spread the mash out thin on the trays and allowed the dehydrator to run about for about 24 hours until everything was dry.
Once dry I peeled the dried fruits off the parchment paper and ground them into powder using a coffee grinder.

One apple, or a small package of berries came out to about a third of a small baby food jar.

I was shocked but our crabs can't get enough of these! We always offer powdered fruits to our crabs from a few online places. These were completely picked clean several times in multiple tanks! The two crabs out of seven that are currently up cleaned out what would normally be for all of them overnight!

I'm really excited to try drying more random fruits and veggies into powders to see how they go over.

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I never knew how this process worked! Wow. Thanks for sharing.

Awesome! What motivation! Who knows, maybe I’ll be purchasing this stuff from your future Etsy store!

How awesome! You put so much work into their food and it seems to have paid off! I'm lazy and buy the little packets of freeze dried fruit at the store, and then beat them up into a powder in my food processor.

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Thanks! We put a lot of time and thought into our crabs. We are always thinking about things we can do for them to make their lives better. I always like experimenting with new stuff.

The powdered fruits we buy are pretty expensive but are needed for our strawberries to keep them bright and colorful. We also offer them as a treat for our other crabs every now and then. We are really looking at ways to cut down what we spend on food. With having six tanks and 44 crabs we can go through a lot of food pretty quickly. These three powders took maybe 30 minutes between the mashing and grinding and the rest of the time was just them in the dehydrator. I find it fun.

As for the possible future store. I don't think we would ever sell foods. We talked about it but feel there are already a lot of great ones out there. I think we would stick to our crabby crafting stuff. Maybe we would do limited runs of foods on occasion or send "extras" with purchased. We have been talking about gourmet crabby popcorn for a while not. I really think crabs would go crazy for it.

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That's amazing! Maybe I need a dehydrator

Also- I ordered some apple powder from a store and it says "add water" does anyone add water to powdered fruit? Or feed it without adding water?

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PeekaBoo2013 wrote:That's amazing! Maybe I need a dehydrator

Also- I ordered some apple powder from a store and it says "add water" does anyone add water to powdered fruit? Or feed it without adding water?

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Try it both ways! Sometimes I'll add a little water in with dried fruit powder to make a paste. I put it in a separate dish because it can get a little messy. The crabbies seem to enjoy it.

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I dehydrated two bananas this weekend! Once ground up it reminds me of brown sugar!

As for adding water. I have noticed some of my powders will rehydrate due to the humidity in the tank

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Motörcrab wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 pm

I dehydrated two bananas this weekend! Once ground up it reminds me of brown sugar!

As for adding water. I have noticed some of my powders will rehydrate due to the humidity in the tank

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Such devotion! I hope to be like all you crabbers some day! All your hermies must be so spoiled ! If you ever decide to open a store please let me know! No doubt I'd be a customer!!

We have discussed opening a store. We just don't have enough free time to dedicate to the quantities of food we would need to make. There are a ton of people selling great foods on Etsy and other places now. I think it would be pretty tough to come up with new mixes that stand out enough to stand out.
We will be vendors at Crab Con 2020 selling some of our crabby craft stuff and supplies. Stuff like braided hemp and jute climbing ropes, curiosity cubes, backgrounds, decorated flower pots, web cams, an assortment of colored craft mesh, tension rods and possibly a few other things too. From the responses we get on here and other groups people seem to really like our backgrounds. Depending on how well Crab Con goes and reactions we get we may attempt to open a store for our crafting stuff or at least try to sell off what we didn't sell.

Motörcrab wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 21, 2020 9:09 pm

We have discussed opening a store. We just don't have enough free time to dedicate to the quantities of food we would need to make. There are a ton of people selling great foods on Etsy and other places now. I think it would be pretty tough to come up with new mixes that stand out enough to stand out.
We will be vendors at Crab Con 2020 selling some of our crabby craft stuff and supplies. Stuff like braided hemp and jute climbing ropes, curiosity cubes, backgrounds, decorated flower pots, web cams, an assortment of colored craft mesh, tension rods and possibly a few other things too. From the responses we get on here and other groups people seem to really like our backgrounds. Depending on how well Crab Con goes and reactions we get we may attempt to open a store for our crafting stuff or at least try to sell off what we didn't sell.

I'm sure all our crabs would go crazy for that fruit powder, even I think it looks tasty, lol! Is that a bad thing? Goes to show how good it seems and I'm sure it is! However, I do look at any food and think most of the time I want to taste it... I'm weird.

They devoured our first batch of powders overnight! Then the next day too! I did try the powders! Like fruity Pixi Stix, only no sugar, and organic! Sometime we will cook or steam our veggies and give them to our crabs. I'm not sure if we eat crab food or they eat our food. Carp eyes, and worm, deer and bat poop, that's all them!

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Motörcrab wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 21, 2020 9:47 pm

They devoured our first batch of powders overnight! Then the next day too! I did try the powders! Like fruity Pixi Stix, only no sugar, and organic! Sometime we will cook or steam our veggies and give them to our crabs. I'm not sure if we eat crab food or they eat our food. Carp eyes, and worm, deer and bat poop, that's all them!

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You're right about some foods being only for them... A nice, powder fruit treat? I'm all for it. But bat poop? Sorry, not my thing, otherwise I'd live in a cage and just eat that.

I made a stop at our Aldi today. I was stocking up on my groceries and saw they had some organic frits and veggies. Time for dehydrator round #3 for the crabs!

Why does every shopping trip turn into a crabby food run? Here is the rundown before and after they are reduced to paste! Bonus point if you know the band and song I just referenced!

Red and yellow peppers



Blackberries and Tomatoes



Pears



They will hopefully be ready by this time tomorrow. I'm not too sure how the peppers will turn out.

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Motörcrab wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 8:14 pm

I made a stop at our Aldi today. I was stocking up on my groceries and saw they had some organic frits and veggies. Time for dehydrator round #3 for the crabs!

Why does every shopping trip turn into a crabby food run? Here is the rundown before and after they are reduced to paste! Bonus point if you know the band and song I just referenced!

Red and yellow peppers



Blackberries and Tomatoes



Pears



They will hopefully be ready by this time tomorrow. I'm not too sure how the peppers will turn out.

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Lol whenever I buy something with my money or get gifts it's for my hermies, not me xD I don't want anything but what my hermies want lol