What's on today's menu & recipe sharing ~2006~

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:44 pm

Iâ€™m going on vacation soon, so Iâ€™m spoiling the crabs and actually managed to put together something fairly attractive.

I mixed all of the following together: mango, pear, grape, pomegranate, papaya, plantain, lettuce, flower petals and dried coconut. I put it on top of an all-natural graham cracker. I put it in the middle of the food dish with some krill on either side and sprinkled everything with sea salt.

It looks pretty and doesnâ€™t even smell that bad. The crabs have only picked at the fruit mixture so far because theyâ€™re busy dragging krill out of the dish.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 1:34 am

Tonight we're having:

beef liver,
scrambled egg
dried apples, cranberries, raisins & dates (organic mix)
red, yellow & green bell peppers,
dried chamomile flowers &
crushed egg shell

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 9:05 pm

Your menus have given us so many ideas. Question is it better to puree it for freezing and thaw if you made batches ahead of time? How much to feed? I think we aren't seeing much disappear, but it may be we are feeding too much. We have 2 med. PP's. Thanks Kathy and Emily

Well, Now that I have looked around some more I found some of my answers. But thanks for ideas.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:30 pm

these little girls are resting right now (can see Amika now, peeking from inside her hole that has started to cave in) so maybe she & Lainika can check it out later

freezedried brine shrimp
banana
mango
dried coconut/fruit hermie mix
peanut butter topped with mixture of ground cuddlebone, flax, algae disc (with spirulina) and whole grain oats
diced cooked chicken
thawed diced krill (Dave really loves opening up that freezer door and seeing all those eyes

staring back at him)
diced lettuce
diced broccoli
apple sauce

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:16 am

Koops wrote:Todays Specials ARRRRREEEE......

1.Mashed Banananana?
2.Peanut Butter
3.FMR Fresh Food
4.Cherry Tomato

And For Desert We Have....

1.Vanilla Flavored Hermie Cookies

Wine List....

Fresh Water (No Chlorine And No Metals)
Salt Water (No Chlorine And No Metals)

--George

Just so you know, it says directly on the lable that the vanilla flavoured hermit crab cookies have Ethoxyquin in it - I wouldn't feed it to them, just my opinion.

Besides... I tried one of them things and they do NOT taste like vanilla, more like cardboard. (yes, call me crazy, I try everything I feed the hermits before they eat it)

I don't feed my hermits any commercial food, all natural.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:43 am

Pink Gulf Shrimp
Mango
Red Bell Pepper
.......all spinkled with wheat germ
.......all on a bed of baby spinach

DustAndEchoes · Post by **DustAndEchoes** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:13 pm

nothing fancy tonight, just a silver side, apple and dried baby shrimp

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 8:25 pm

Tonight we had Thai, and so did the crabbies, Chicken cooked in coconut milk, with sweet peppers, ginger and basil (I took theirs out before I added anything else) with cooked jasmine rice, a side dish of coconut milk to drink, and for dessert, fried banana in honey. (all organic food). I also gave them a dish of peanut butter with chilies (don't ask me, they love it!), as it fits the Thai theme. This is the first time I've given them fresh coconut milk, and it seems to be a hit.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:50 pm

osippi wrote:
Just so you know, it says directly on the lable that the vanilla flavoured hermit crab cookies have Ethoxyquin in it - I wouldn't feed it to them, just my opinion.

Besides... I tried one of them things and they do NOT taste like vanilla, more like cardboard. (yes, call me crazy, I try everything I feed the hermits before they eat it)

I don't feed my hermits any commercial food, all natural.

WOAH!! that was a LOOONNGG TIME AGO!! I read the label recently and now i dont feed them commercial food at all I wouldnt THINK of it!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 6:31 pm

osippi wrote:
Just so you know, it says directly on the lable that the vanilla flavoured hermit crab cookies have Ethoxyquin in it - I wouldn't feed it to them, just my opinion.

Besides... I tried one of them things and they do NOT taste like vanilla, more like cardboard. (yes, call me crazy, I try everything I feed the hermits before they eat it)

I don't feed my hermits any commercial food, all natural.

uh-oh. As soon as I read this I reached over to my pellets and it read Ethoxyquin in it. Obviously I,m assuming that is bad for them. Looks like they are getting only crackers and strawberries tonight. So far I know that Ethoxyquin and Copper Sulfate are bad. Thank you for posting this or otherwise I would never know. Can someone tell me other things to watch out for when I buy pellets? I don't think I can give them everything they need with just normal food. I'm so sorry if I made a big mistake again.

I hope they didn't eat this too much. Why do they even put this stuff in it if it's poisonous!!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 8:33 pm

I believe that FMR pellets have the dreaded EQ in them, too, though it isn't listed as an ingredient. My hermits were highly addicted to that stuff when I first started crabbing. It took me about 6 weeks to completely wean them off of it!

Tonight's menu:

Papya
Organic Peanut Butter
Krill
Parsley Sprigs
Grape Halves

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:11 pm

uh-oh. As soon as I read this I reached over to my pellets and it read Ethoxyquin in it. Obviously I,m assuming that is bad for them. Looks like they are getting only crackers and strawberries tonight. So far I know that Ethoxyquin and Copper Sulfate are bad. Thank you for posting this or otherwise I would never know. Can someone tell me other things to watch out for when I buy pellets? I don't think I can give them everything they need with just normal food. I'm so sorry if I made a big mistake again. I hope they didn't eat this too much. Why do they even put this stuff in it if it's poisonous!!

EQ and Copper Sulfate are the big ones to look out for.

Ethoxyquin is used as a preservative in pet foods. I think pet food manufacturers just really think if they put it in in small enough doses it won't bother the animals - which may be true for a larger animal like a dog or a cat, but for hermit crabs, which are so small and sensitive to what's in their food, it probably is more harmful.

Copper Sulfate, on the other hand as far as I know is just a source of the mineral copper - which they need - but the form they use in the food, copper sulfate, is known to be lethal to crustaceans in larger doses, and most people don't want to take the chance of feeding ANY to their pet (because a small dose in the system might not kill them now, but it might build up over time). There are better ways to get minerals.

Honestly, I think pet food manufacturers just don't take the time to do enough research and don't want to put out the money for real quality ingredients.

There are good commercial hermit crab foods out there though - Crab Island (original formula, not the fruit and flower) is pretty common. Also, if you can shop at petdiscounters.com (it's the only place I've seen it, there may be in person stores that carry it as well), Gardner's Tree Crab food is great.

Check out the fish section of your pet store too for dried shrimp, bloodworms, even frozen foods (the above, marine cuisine, etc).

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 9:55 pm

Diced ckn
Diced krill
Diced red bell pepper
Diced cantaloupe
Grape
Blueberry
Applesauce
Banana
Ground algae(spirulina), cuddlebone, whole grain oats, flax

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 4:12 pm

today's menu is:

chicken
peeled and cut grape
plain popcorn

dechlorinated fresh and salt water[/list]

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 4:32 pm

Seafood Buffet!

Krill
Silversides
Freeze Dried Brine Shrimp
Shrimp Exo
~~Drizzled with Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
~~~All sprinkled with seasalt & cuttlebone!

HCA: Hermit Crab Association

What's on today's menu & recipe sharing ~2006~

dinner