Did you know that one of the main staples in a wild hermit crab's diet is feces? I know, pretty gross huh? But it makes sense. Hermit crabs are beach combers and as they travel across the beaches and the inland areas they consume all sorts of things and animal and bird feces make up a large part of that. The practice of consuming feces is called coprophagia.

Since I started crabbing every great once in awhile I hear stories of a crabber introducing some sort of feces in their tank. Turtle, guinea pig, and horse poo are the ones that I've heard of. The crab responses are usually very good.

Recently too, the practice of adding worm casting to the tank has become popular. Worm castings are basically a clean dirt but no less than 100% worm poop for it. Few people think of worm castings as true feces because it is honestly what makes up the dirt in your yard, but it provides much of the same benefits.

After some late night internet combing however, I ran across a product I'd never seen before, Seabird Guano. (Guano is a polite word for bird/bat feces). I passed on the bat guano because I couldn't see crabs venturing into cold, dark caves however, seabird guano is something that they would certainly encounter in their natural environment.

So did they like it? No word yet. As the weather shifts they've got all got underground as they normally do for a few weeks. I'm going to be doing a deep clean and installing some warming cable and I'll be back to update you on how it's received in a few weeks.

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