HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I want to know so I can try them on my crabs who have suffered with the canned crap from pet stores

Coconut!
They go nuts for it, never found a crab on this earth who would turn it down.
It does not have to be fresh though, I did have some fresh, but it went bad because my crabs don't eat very much! I bought a bag of coconut chips, and it last longer. Make sure anything you buy has no preservatives in it, because that is bad for the crabs.
Mine also LOVE freeze dried bloodworms, well, freeze dried seafood overall has always been a fav.
My crabs also love oak bark and leaves(green or brown, doesn't matter!) and they also like fruit, and honey.

I hope this helps.

Coconut
Avacado
and Freeze dried blood worms?
anything else?

Any sort of fruit really, I've never seen crabs turn fruit down, they seem to like sweet things.
Crushed egg shells are also good for getting them calcium, as well as honey.

like honey from a bee? I have hives all over that my parents own so we have fresh natural honey! So if that is the kind of honey that rox

Yeah, they'll love that kind of honey. Natural, straight from the hive is the best!

There are a few other threads on crab's favorite foods, so if you look through this Food & Water forum, you'll find tons of more answers.

My hermies go nuts over baby food (organic of course). I use Nature's Goodness brand and their faves are mango, papaya, apples & blueberries, and corn & sweet potatoes. Best part about that is that you can freeze the leftover and just give them a little bit as needed. And they love their freeze dried foods. Oh and mine go nuts over fresh shrimp too. Rocky always grabs it and drags it over to a corner and stands in front of it when other crabs come by as if to say "MINE BACK OFF". I always have to put in two pieces for anyone else to get any.

yea when I go shopping this weekend they will get a brand new diet see how this sounds

Monday
Coconut
salt water
fresh water

Tuesday
Avacado
salt water
fresh water

Wendsday
Mango and Strawberries
salt water
fresh water

Thursday
Chicken or Fish
salt water
fresh water

Friday
unsalted nuts
salt water
fresh water

Saterday
doggie kibble (a school friend said hers loves it tell me if it is bad for them)
salt water
fresh water

Sunday
Veggie Salad
Fruit Salad
dryed Shrimp
salt water
fresh water

Big MaC wrote:Saturday
doggie kibble (a school friend said hers loves it tell me if it is bad for them)
salt water
fresh water

Well, it depends on the dog kibble. Hopefully it doesn't have too many preservatives that might affect the crab that wouldn't necessarily affect dogs....

Once I managed to induce a large pp to molt twice in a span of one month with just store bought dog kibble alone. That was about 2000 or around the late 1990s, I forgot. It never grew, however, and didn't live long after that either.

Regardless, if you are not too sure, I would probably replace the doggie kibble with a serving of coconut or shrimp for the week, if I were in your shoes.

I would skip the dog kibble for the above mentioned reasons. And I wouldn't do just one type of food per day. You should always keep a protein source in the food bowl to help prevent cannibalism. I use freeze dried baby shrimp/krill (depending on size of crabs feeding). Mine go wild for banana and mango and raisins and strawberries. Pretty much the sweet fruits are a hit as long as they're natural. You don't want pesticides or junk on them.

My crabs love raisins and the newest addition----silversides. I have to admit, I was kind of grossed out and feeling bad about giving them the silversides (they are frozen, I thaw them), but I generally put them in the tank, and within about 10 minutes can't find them because the crabs drag them off...then I have to look through the sand for them!

mushrooms - especially cooked. My crabs LOVE their mushrooms

My crabbies love chamomile. It's just dried. They dig right in!

my hermits favs:

coconut
avocado
freeze dried blood worms
cherries
dandelion leaves and flowers
shredded carrot
cooked unseasoned chicken
peanut butter
honey
walnuts
guava
watercress
scrambled egg

Of course they get a variety of other fruits/veggies/proteins but these are the things I've noticed them crowd around the dish for and/or completely gone the next day.

Like many have stated here, Coconut by far was my guys favorite. Every single crab I had always went for the coconut first before anything else. I fed them a large variety of foods but always put some coconut on the side. Sometimes I put no coconut in and they never touched the food at all.

I'd always found chewed up pieces of it scattered around the tat in the morning.