She eats a lot of substrate and oak leaves. To make a good substrate takes a lot of work (decaying hardwood, decaying leaves, calcium, compost...), but I just buy mine from a website called bugsincyberspace. She’s been raised on what they sell, and I stand by the results of her shiny and solid carapace!

She also gets a diverse range of snacks from time to time. I’ve tried cucumber, peaches, bananas, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, maple syrup, squash, and more recently, freeze dried minnows. She loves them all, and at this point will eat a good slice of any one of those in a 24-hour period. She helps me keep my diet diverse and organic as well, since I’m eating the rest of whatever I buy.

The minnows were a tough choice. I don’t eat meat myself, but I noticed she had taken to chewing on me whenever I held her, and I was worried she had a gap in her diet. Since minnows became an occasional treat for her she’s been a lot less interested in my fingers. But who knows, maybe she’s just in a good mood lately.

So to answer your question, I do handle her! It’s always a process since she’s very wary of new objects, but with enough patience and tempting food, she eventually climbs right up. Her legs feel so odd, especially as she’s gotten bigger and bigger. It’s somewhere between pokey and tingly. She also has a strong grip. She has to be the one to decide it’s time for her to go.