Making it easy for family

[emmac350]

Okay...I've had my crabs back for a whopping 6 months now (not quite) and am preparing to give them to another family member to watch for 2 years while I go on adventures, this time in Korea (super excited!). That's happy. But this time, it's a new family member who's caring for them, and they're a little freaked out by it (but excited at the same time). I'm trying to make it easy on them.

So...food. I mostly feed Addiction Store food, which I love, and so do the crabs. I've just made a huge purchase, and will buy the food again for them whenever I hear that the crabs need a refill. I'll print the list of edible/inedible foods for them in case they feel like supplementing. Easy peasy. I'll grin and bear the fact that I don't think they'll do a deep clean, and just not worry about it because...it's 2 years. If they survived 3 years with my sister...we'll be fine (and it might be less than 2 years, we'll see). But food.

I have a little organized system of the little baggies set up in a craft storage container, broken down into food groups - calcium, protein with chitin (dried shrimp, bugs, etc.), non-chitin protein, fruits, veggies, seaweed, flowers, nuts/seeds/puffs, and cellulose (oak/maple leaves, corn husks, dandelion or mangrove root, "trace" with bee polle/earthworm castings/boost powder/astax powder, etc.). Now, I realize that the groups aren't all-inclusive, or all-exclusive, but it helps me keep up a rotation of foods so none of the same food is served two days in a row.

To make it easy on the crab foster parents while I'm gone, I was thinking of condensing the groups down to more main ones (calcium, all meats, flowers/veggies/cellulose, seaweed, "trace/treat," and maybe put the fruits with the nuts/seeds/puffs and the fruit members of the veggie group). BUT...should I just dump them all together and trust that the mixtures will never be homogenized to make sure the crabs don't turn up their noses due to having eaten something recently? Specify to the family members to try to get a scoop out of each jar that looks different each time? OR, should I make it a little harder on the family members and just put the bags of each group into the jars and tell them to grab something different each time to make sure the crabs are okay?

I'm trying to get everything worked out as best as I can now, since I know it'll be crazy when I'm moving at the end of next month. Mondo ordering of food, and trying to decide how best to balance the crabs' pickiness with the need to make it easy on the family members that I want to like me when I get home and pick up said silly crabs.

So...bottom line up front...mix the foods and trust the crabs won't starve themselves (especially with plenty of edible items in the tank, what with chollas, white oak bark chunks, palm tree bits, eggshells, and cuttlebone) or make it harder?

Gah, I'm probably overthinking this, but my sister-in-law is freaked out by crabs and holding them or touching them, and she'll be the one home with them all day. My brother-in-law is fine with the idea, but still...less work for them = happier them = relationship still in one piece upon my return. Please help!

[Wai]

I think it would be too tedious to grab a bit from each jar. How about making three different jars, each containing a different mixture of the foods you mentioned and then having them scoop from a different jar each day? If even that is too much, reduce it down to two jars.

[emmac350]

Wai - great idea! I'm glad you thought of that. That way it's just "shake the jar, grab two or three mini spoonfuls, done." Use the other jar(s) next time. I'm already saving pickle jars - I have two now, and a third still in the fridge.

I'll post here with how I work it out...I have some items in bulk (worm castings, nuts, some of my flowers) so I'm not 100% sure with how I'll split everything up, but I'll keep the ingredients in each jar different and hopefully however many jars I end up with will be enough and the mixes will be different enough (and not homogenized, so hopefully everything doesn't smell/taste the same) that the crabs are okay with it.

I might have to come up with a plan for if/when I have to order more food for them, but I've had good luck with Vicki being easy to work with and will probably just include instructions with the order to say "put items X, Y, and Z in a ziploc bag labelled 1" and "items A, B, and C in a bag labelled 2" etc. I'll have to keep notes on here (probably in my journal) for what items are currently in each jar so each item can get into the proper jar (to ensure that they don't have, say, sunflower petals in two jars! The horror!).

Thanks! It's so simple, I'm kind of embarrassed I didn't come up with it...