HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Purchased 2 cabbies for my girls. Trying to learn about their diet and proper feeding. Any advice would be appreciated!

Welcome! They basically eat what you eat. Organic is best. Just no seasonings. Cooked or raw. They need calcium and protein every day. Best thing to do is read through the care guides. It has the safe and unsafe food list. The food pyramid. Set up of the tank. Heat and humidity needs. Just keep asking questions.

Welcome to the board!

As said above, a good rule of thumb is whatever fresh healthy foods you eat, they crabs will also enjoy eating. Being scavengers, they have a pretty varied diet in the wild!

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Hello, and welcome to the HCA!

If you eat a well-rounded diet, whether it be strictly this or that, it makes it much easier to make a routine of feeding your crabs, they need fresh fruits, vegetables, proteins, and a good source of calcium as well. I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, at least one of each per day, and my crabs most likely are going to get the same thing I did, provided that it passed the safe food list.

I also suggest odd foods for the crabs such as sea vegetables, examples are nori, seaweed, and kelp kombu.

Meats are very important, they are a big source of protein that your crabs will enjoy, they don't need to be cooked, my crabs far prefer raw foods than cooked. I only cook foods that they couldn't eat otherwise. You can try the basic meats like chicken, turkey, pork and beef, but you can also be adventurous and try meats like octopus, squid, crab, and rabbit. My crabs love stinky sea meats, tuna being a really smelly one.

Commercially dried foods are not good choices unless they don't contain any calcium sulfate, this is quite harmful to your crabs in a longterm usage. You can, however, buy prepacked fruits or vegetables that have been dehydrated or freeze-dried, just check the ingredients for any added seasonings. I dry food that I am going to use later at home with my food dehydrator.

I wish you good luck, we are here for you!

hi! welcome to the forum!

definitely do check out the care sheets posted at the top of this forum and also the safe food lists in the feeding section. i just wanted to pop in and say that freeze dried foods are a GREAT way to feed your crab. the vast majority of the food i feed my crabs is freeze dried, with fresh food as occasional treats. the most important thing is variety, and there should always be 1 meat protein with every meal. for example, you can get freeze dried crickets, shrimp, grasshoppers, mealworms, bloodworms, etc at the petstore usually in the reptile or turtle section. just make sure any food you get contains NO ADDITIVES OR PRESERVATIVES as crabs are very sensitive to those things. i also bought a bunch of freeze dried dog treats such as beef, bison liver, turkey, salmon, etc. to present even more variety. you can get dried vegetables and fruits as well!

i just wanted to mention that because i see alot of posts about fresh foods. fresh foods are great but you shouldnt feel like feeding dried foods makes you a bad crab-parent! and they are a heck of a lot easier

this is an amazing community with a ton of knowledge who helped me alot when i first got my crabs. never hesitate to answer ask if you have any questions! also we'd love to see your crabs and tank setup

Welcome to HCA pretty much what everyone said before. But I also want to add organic baby food. Its not overly expensive and you can freeze small portions to keep. Pop it in the tank and it will mealt into a crab feast.

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