What Do Hermit Crabs Eat?
Quick answer: Hermit crabs are omnivores that eat fruit, vegetables, cooked meat or fish, and commercial hermit crab food. They also need a source of calcium, such as crushed eggshell, plus fresh and salt water. Avoid salty, sugary or processed foods.
What do hermit crabs eat? It is a common question among those pet owners who are first learning the joys of having a hermit crab. Hermit crabs are wild animals that have been caught and learn to live in captivity easily since they are very versatile eaters with healthy appetites. The good news is that they do not have a tendency to be picky eaters. Still, you have to bear in mind a number of things when feeding them. For instance, did you know that they locate food by either seeing that other crabs are eating something or smelling the food themselves?
Hermit Crabs Are Omnivores
In fact, to stay healthy, hermit crabs need to eat just like we do if we are maintaining a nutritional diet. Simply put, hermit crabs are omnivores, just like we are. They can eat meats, they can have fish, they can certainly have vegetables, and you can even give them fresh fruit for dessert. Whenever possible, these foods should be organic, or at least unprocessed. Everything needs to be washed thoroughly before being served. After that, especially with vegetables and fruits, let the food dry. Hermit crabs also eat foods rich in tannin. This includes oak tree leaves and even bark. These too need to be washed and left to dry.
Store-Bought Hermit Crab Food
The hermit crab diet you can buy at the pet store sometimes has extra supplements in it like calcium, antioxidants and carotene. If their diet does not contain enough of these then, after they have gone through the molting process, their color will be faded and they may have problems molting.
Foods to Try With Your Hermit Crab
Hermit crabs love to try different foods. Hermit crabs will eat a wide variety of foods and it can be fun to experiment to see which your pet crabs like the best. Try fruits and vegetables, tuna fish, peanut butter, crackers or potato chips. Grapes, raisins and popcorn are crab favorites.
Randi Jones is the owner and founder of the Nature Gift Store, an online retailer specializing in nature-themed gifts, educational science projects, live animal nature kits and real butterfly artwork. A biology graduate who fell in love with insects, she founded the company in 2001 to make active learning about nature fun, accessible and engaging for children and adults. Her store offers real butterfly frames, home and garden decor and educational live animal kits, including ant farms, worm farms, tadpoles, ladybugs and hermit crabs, and she runs a bug museum in Washington featuring live animals like Eddie the Iguana alongside other reptiles and insects.
