Safe and Unsafe Wood

This article is no longer being updated. Please use the new, comprehensive hermit crab food list!

Written by Julia Crab (Kerie Campbell) Wednesday, 28 September 2005. Updated by Stacy Griffith 2016.

Here follows a list of woods that can be used safely in a hermit crab environment.

These are non-toxic woods that won’t hurt them if eaten. This list, as all the others, is not in any way complete, and will be expanded as new information is received.

The list of unsafe woods follows the safe list. Fruit bearing trees are generally considered unsafe. (Not necessarily the fruit but wood, bark, leaves, seeds.)

Safe Woods

Ash
Aspen
Birch
Cholla or Choya wood
Cork bark
Cypress (swamp variety, taxodium species) **not a suitable substrate!
Grape vine
Mangrove
Manzanita
Maple/Japanese Maple
Oak
Pear
Pecan
Poplar
Sycamore
Willow

Unsafe Woods

Apple
Apricot
Bitter Almond
Black Locust
Boxwood
Cherry
Cherry Laurel
Eucalyptus
Evergreen of any kind (pine*, cedar, redwood, etc.)
Hemlock
Laurel
Mango
Nectarine
Peach
Plum
Walnut (added 2/2018 after consulting with invertebrate veterinarians)
Yew

As an alternative to the pine half logs you see for sale for reptiles, Petco is now selling fake (as in non wood!) pine half logs. Joy!

*pine is currently being reviewed based on some feedback from experienced keepers. At this time we are keeping it on the unsafe list. If you choose to use it, do so at your own risk.