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Anyone keep their own worms? I am tired of the bait store hours and wal-mart was out of worms for a week. I saw at Gander Mountain they had a styrofoam container for keeping worms. How long should they last in it? How much trouble or smell are they to keep?
This topic was discussed shortly after the panfish forum was started. Several of us keep worms. We have two styrofoam coolers in our cellar with worms that we use for bait and composting. If we buy any and have some leftover, they go into the tub ,too. That's really how we started keeping worms. Use that Frabill bedding to start and supplement with shredded newspaper and chopped up vegetables and you're good to go. - Roberta
all you have to do is keep it refirated and feed it flour or corn starch and if you keep it long anough youll need to replace the soil
Ok, what do u mean by refirated? What does it mean?
So you only feed them Flour or cornstarch? Nothing else?
Say a cooler 20"x12"x12". How much flour would u add and how oftain? Do you just sprinkle on top or do you mix it in?
What do you use for main bedding? Right now I have some nightcrawlers in a mixture of plain dirt, shreaded newpapers(used paper shreader works great), and grass clippings.
That's a good combination for holding. Be sure you keep it cool, but refrigerators dehydrate the worms if held too long. The Frabill (and there are other brands) food appeasr to be a mix of corn meal and corn flour. Just sprinkle a little on top of the bedding. They'll come up and eat it. Even with the chopped vegs, egg shells and coffee grounds we put in, we use feed for the tiny babies that hatch out. - Roberta
my grandma used to raise and sell redworms. she used cow manure for the bedding, she had the cows, and she feed them chicken pellets 1 a week and sray water on the bed after to moisten the manure and the food also. she had worms as far back as i can remember. this was large scale but im sure it would be the same for a small bed.
I bought 500 redworms from BPS in Jan and have left the worms in the original container and bedding. I feed them about a spoonful of hushpuppy mix every week and water as necessary.
I have a spare refriderator for my bait. I use to go out and pick up worms after a rain or in the rain, but those days are gone. I usually just buy them from wal-mart and keep them in the bait fridge in the container they come in. I use to use frabill worm containers and use their bedding and would put shredded newspaper and coffee grounds in every once in awhile. Since I mostly fish for Crappie anymore I don't keep that many worms anymore.
My dad used to rise his own worms, red and earth worms. He had them in his compost pile. They never wondered to far. He would also put bacon drippings, fat, in one side of the compost pile. That is where he would go to get worms for cat fishin.
A fellow posted a homemade minnow trap on the main board from this same Boy's Life Scouting web-site a little while ago. This outdoor worm bed looks like a lot of trouble but it might be interesting as a more permanent worm bed. At least it can give some ideas. I used to keep a shaded outdoor worm bed in a buried old 55gal. metal drum with the top cut off and a piece of plywood over the top but that was a long time ago (sure did beat digging them up when I didn't want to drive into town to the baitshop).
Worm bed
Minnow trap
I keep mine in my back yard. If I need any they are there and nature takes care of them.
good price for worms!
http://www.wormman.com/pd_red.cfm
Our two worm boxes are producing a steady supply of small redworms. Right now, they are mostly being used for composting kitchen vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells, but come winter, the larger ones will go ice fishing with us. I bought the composting type which are a bit smaller than the redworms commonly sold for bait. They won't survive in an outdoor environment, bu tthey sure are thriving in their stryofoam coolers.
This week, we added a third box containing nightcrawlers, when the ranger sent us home with the leftover bait from Hooked on Fishing. I thought maybe there were a couple or three dozen left. Holy moly, we have hundreds! Looks like we'll be doing more worm fishing than usual this summer.
BTW, KMart stopped selling the Frabill dry worm bedding and went to the ready-to-use. That's fine for your bait box, but you get a third as much as the dry for the same price. WalMart is selling Brown Bear Bait Co. dry worm bedding for a couple of dollars. - Roberta
I use the nightcrawlers from wally world. Keep a piece of cedar shingle & a cheapo paring knife on the boat and cut each crawler in 8 pieces on the average. Caught around a 1,000 fish in the last month on one 24 count tub of crawlers. Crappie,White Perch,Yellow Perch,Pumpkinseed,Bass & Pickerel. A plain hook or tube jig tipped with a piece of crawler. The point of the hook must be hidden with the crawler. Put hook in through the skin,thread on the hook & hide the point in the skin. I keep the crawlers in a 6 pack cooler with ice on the boat. They do not like temperature change.
Follow Roberta's advice and you'll have plenty of healthy worms. Also try and keep them in a cool, dark place and remember not to overwater them. Just keep the bedding moist.
On a side note : my girlfriend keeps her leftover worms in the fridge between trips and they usually last a month or so before going bad.
Just remember to mark them so your other half dosn't open it thinking it's leftover chinese takeout. YEIKES
Tight Lines BB
if i know that ill have worms in the fridge a while ill feed them a little instant grits or cream of wheat works good
go to walmart or meijers and in the sporting goods you shouls find a "magic" worm farm kit itll get you started on it. all u need to do is add declorified fresh water and worms accordingly to the insructions. it comes with a styrofoam tub with a nice lid with plastic air hole inserts and a tow rope. also it comes with 1 and a quarter lb. of the worm bedding and a few ounces of magic worm food (its probably just cornstarch and flour mixture) it works and hold up to 100 worms but u have to change the bedding every 6 weeks but its cheap as all get out. its a great way to cheat the bait store haha!
Finally got off my rear and took some pics of my babys and loaded them on the computer!Quote:
Originally Posted by dmbutler47
The first pic is of the bed with the cover on. Framed the bed with railroad ties 4'x8'. Dug it about 18" deep. Filled with mixture of sawdust, rabbit manure, cow manure, top soil, humis, dead leaves and peatmoss. Mixed together real good and let sit about two weeks to get the heat out of the bed before I introduced the worms. Got 500 worms (wigglers/earthworms) from my Dad's good friend over in good ole Alabama. I feed the worms every two weeks, raw vegetables (nothing cooked), non medicated chicken feed and coffee grounds from my work. I rake the dead leaves back spread the feed and recover. The leaves keep the moisture in and the cold out. This time of year I have to add some water because the bed will get dry. Notice how I built the lid with legs so there will be a gap for air between the lid and the bed.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...5/100_0347.jpg
Here is the bed with the lid up. I just lean on the fence so I can feed or dig.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...5/100_0346.jpg
Here is with the leaves raked off the bed for feeding.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...5/100_0345.jpg
Here is a pic of the top. Notice all the holes? This is for when it rains, it allows water in without flooding the bed. It has rained for days and it won't let enough water in to drown the worms.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...5/100_0348.jpg
Now to introduce you all to my babys, I sure do love them!:D :p :)
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...5/100_0183.jpg
My neighbor has a big Magnolia tree in her front yard. I can go over there anytime, day or night, and pretty much any time of year and just rake the leaves out of the way and find as many as I want. Put the leaves back, come back when I need more. They are right on the top of the dirt most of the time. It's amazing how many there are and how easy they are to get. They are sometimes huge too. I have grabbed several that were around 6 or 7 inches long and as fat as my finger.
Thats a good set up, where I went wrong was I didn't anticipate ants, they took the bed over in no time, my second shot worked a little better, I used 4X4 and raised the bed off the ground, but first I uswed coffee cans filled with water to put the legs in, this drowned most of the pesky ants, but the heat and dry weather made it a chore, switched to meal worms.
Bamafan, what do you do about ants? If you keep it moist, does that keep the ants away.?
I do have ants periodically. I use seven dust around the bed. I use Amdro in the bed itself. The next time I feed them the ants are always gone and the worms are just fine.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by jigdancer
it is definetly a chore to keep up with the bed. Sometimes I just dread having to feed them or keep up with keeping the bed moist. It is like making jigs, you take pleasure in catching fish on something you made or raised! I have had the bed for 4yrs now and just changed out the dirt, I will keep it up as long as I am physically able.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by kygorski
Thosde things are really pesky,my coffee cans worked pretty good, with ouit using any ant poison, but still the watering and then the yellow jackets, and all the hassle, just wasn't worth it. Meal worms are cheap, and not as messy, at my age I just dont need any more chores, besidesmy wife has plenty of things she wishes I would do with my time, no man can serve two masters, I may not get much at home, but I make up for it at the lake lol
i have a large compost pile. i have corrugated fiberglass an the bottom and the container is a piece of 3.5' tube on its end. The worms here in Ca are all red worms. Larger worms stay in the pile most of the time when its cold and they say up near the top. But when it gets hot they leave and usually fewer and smaller worms are left. Ive put bunches in a bucket or ice chest and they will run, all over. I only wish i new a better way to collect them than by hand. There is also a dedicated worm raising message board and web site somewhere on the net. I would advise against trying to raise em enclosed. MY compost pile is all lawn trimming and vegtable scraps, they also love eggs. Ive put worm food in and never could tell a diff. Ive put night crawlers in by never have gotten one out. My compost pile also gets automatically watered.