Over the weekend, I asked Nate to do some research on hermit crabs to see if it needed some fresh food to supplement the dry food we bought. He did, and we found out lots of fascinating things about hermit crabs, a.k.a. "you're doing it wrong."
According to random folks on the internet, they enjoy green vegetables like kale and broccoli, as we as fruits, including bananas, mangoes, peaches and apples. Some observations:
1) Oh good, there's another foodie in my house.
2) How, exactly did they figure that out?
Our old parrot used to scream her head off if anyone dared to make popcorn and not share with her, so I guess I should be careful into whose glass cage I throw stones on this subject, but who woke up one morning and decided to give a hermit crab kale? I can get on board with mangoes and bananas. They grow in tropical places where you're likely to find a hermit crab. But did someone take their crab with them to the produce section, give it a $5 bill and let it go crazy on the apple bin? Weird.
As it turns out, you're also apparently supposed to provide them with fresh water and salt water. And don't think you can get away with just dissolving some regular salt into that water. Nope. It needs to be a special marine salt mixture. Nate helpfully found a 2lb. bag of it online, which would probably be a lifetime supply for an entire army of hermit crabs (which, let's be clear, I'm not interested in owning). Instead, we went to the pet store and found some already mixed up! It's the size, shape, and color of an ordinary disposable water bottle, so we were sure to warn the kids when we got home that it was just for Hermes (which is what we've been calling the crab for months). Nate threw a look of confusion mixed with pity for being so incomprehensibly stupid over his shoulder and said "What did you call him? His name is Hercules." That's . . . news to me.
Here, Hercules, have some kale.
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