HCA: Hermit Crab Association

As Epicurean Hermit has taken the liberty to make a crab-edible food list, Tetracolor and I (founders of The HCC) have created a list, along with the help of Jedi Sena, of harvestable food.

The harvestable food includes foods that are able to be foraged from the woods and foods that can be grown organically in a pot or garden. This list contains many foods that are not found in the grocery store, but foods that are found in the wilderness.

The harvestable food list gives rise to a different way of getting hermit crab food. The list is near completion now and I feel confident enough to allow everyone here to see it.

Harvestables

The above link is the link to the list and article. If you would please do so, tell me what you think about harvesting crab food and what the article was like. Tetracolor and I would really appreciate any feedback!

Once again, thank you Jedi for helping out with many foods!

Oh.. and everyone don't forget that I helped with it so it is perfect, right??? Seriously, tell us what you think we worked hard on this. And we hope it will allow your crabs to try out some new foods.

Interesting idea, but you may want to add another disclaimer to your list... Do not "harvest" without the property owner's permission and I don't just mean ask the neighbor lady before you pinch a couple of her prized petunias. A lot of parks, nature preserves & government-owned properties have regulations against removing or damaging plant-life. I wouldn't want any of our members to get ticketed for removing tree bark in a restricted area or for trespassing on private land... well, most of you anyway.

What a great list...there's stuff on there that I never would have tried on my own, but are readily available to me. This is going to be very handy!

Thank you for putting together such a thorough list.

megs wrote:Interesting idea, but you may want to add another disclaimer to your list... Do not "harvest" without the property owner's position and I don't just mean ask the neighbor lady before you pinch a couple of her prized petunias. A lot of parks, nature preserves & government-owned properties have regulations against removing or damaging plant-life. I wouldn't want any of our members to get ticketed for removing tree bark in a restricted area or for trespassing on private land... well, most of you anyway.

Thank you for mentioning this! I will definitely add it very soon.

Hmmm... note to self: Do not post while still half asleep from an evening nap.
Position - Permission, they are soooo almost the same thing.

megs wrote:Hmmm... note to self: Do not post while still half asleep from an evening nap.
Position - Permission, they are soooo almost the same thing.

Lol, don't worry! I understood what you meant.

Megs, don't feel bad I didn't even notice!

That's a great article. I love to harvest food for my crabs (and all my other critters) when I'm taking a walk.

Storing leafy greens/wild plants in plastic bags or tupperware containers after misting them with water will keep them fresh for a week or so.

Jedediah wrote: Storing leafy greens/wild plants in plastic bags or tupperware containers after misting them with water will keep them fresh for a week or so.

Thank you for the tip, Jedediah. If you don't mind, I think I am going to post that on the page.

Of course, go ahead

New Addition:

The Harvestables page just got a little more detailed. Each item on the list now links to a Wikipedia page resulting in the food that you have selected. Wikipedia has information on the plant and pictures.

Additionally, Jedi_Sena has allowed us to use some pictures from Photobucket that are used for Crabotanicals. The entire page is pretty much completed.

All we need now is more foods on the list!

I was happy to lend my name and knowledge to the project--you guys do great work! It is going to be a popular list folks around here will reference often. I especially love the fact that your readers are welcome to contribute! I hope they will do so generously.

Well, I was thinking..if certain foods like tomatoes and cucumbers are alright for crabs, what about the leaves of tomatoes..

Since hermit crabs have such a good sense of smell, would it be OK to put in some tomato leaves? They smell good, and I would imagine they're safe for the hermies...

What about the flowers of cucumbers or watermelon and Cantaloupe flowers?

They smell good and might have some good vitamins in them...

What do you think?

That is just the sort of thing I'm testing on my blog, but there are a lot of things I haven't gotten to try yet. I've done some preliminary research on a few of these and most squash and melon leaves are human edible which indicates low toxicity levels. Tomato leaves are a concern of mine because they belong to the nightshade family (also you don't see a lot of bugs eating tomato leaves). I think eggplant also belong to nightshade family. Sweet potato leaves are eaten a lot in the Philippines, so they might have potential. But they need to be thoroughly tested before we can say whether these items are safe or not.