Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Growing worms and night crwlers question.

Can I keep night crawlers and red wigglers in the same tub? I bought 17 gallon Rubbermaid tub about 7 weeks ago and added 90 red wigglers. The tub is 2/3 full with peat moss, a shovel full of top soil and 1 whole shredded news paper. The red wrigglers seem happy and I found a baby the other day! Can I add 3 dozen night crawlers to the tub? Will they hurt anything? Will they also reproduce?

seantOH

Why not just start another? Then there separate?

I don't believe that the night crawlers will reproduce if they are bought at the store. If I'm not totally mistaken, most of what you buy at the store is Canadian nightcrawlers which, I have read here, do not reproduce here. I'm not sure why, but that is what I recall reading. Catmandoo/Ken ought to have some good insight on this as he has raised an awful lot of worms. I copied his model and have a tub of red wigglers going, though I think I've pulled most out to feed our pet LMB that we caught out of our pond about a year ago and have in an aquarium here at the house. That's really cool that you found a baby red wiggler, though! Gives me hope that if I go get some more - if freakin' WalMart ever gets them in again - I'll get some successful breeding. Where did you buy your wigglers?

Sean,

First welcome to Pond Boss.

You are well on your way to a very successful worm farm.

One of my cousins and I picked, stored, and sold many thousands of night crawlers in our pre-teen and teenage years. We kept them in washtubs. We filled the tubs with local swamp peat and garden soil, and amended it daily with coffee grounds and kitchen scraps. We also had a couple of old claw-foot bathtubs. We never saw any evidence of them reproducing. I don't know why.

As nightcrawler pickers, we certainly saw our share of procreating pairs. It might be unfair, but they are a lot easier to pick than those out solo cruising for the evening.

I've mixed night crawlers and many types of manure worms, redworms, and other unidentified worms for at least 50 years. They all live peacefully together. They don't seem to intermingle, but they don't hurt each other either.

Night crawlers are very sensitive to temperature. They don't survive long at above about 50-60 degrees. Many manure worms don't either. But, red wigglers/wrigglers -- whatever you call them, are extremely hardy. They breed like crazy. They grow fast. They tolerate very wide ranging temperatures. And, even if they get frozen or cooked, they will have left cocoons that will hatch as soon as the weather gets better.

You are in a pretty good location to keep many different types -- not too hot, not too cold. They will need some protection summer and winter, like in a crawlspace, a well insulated workshop, or even a cattle barn.

Just keep them well fed with vegetable matter, and keep them moistened -- not too wet, not too dry. Drill lots of holes in your container to allow air to come in, and to let water seep out. The worms won't escape.

Good luck,
Ken

Thank you all for the information! I just bought my red wigglers at WalMart. They have red heads and light tan tails with yellow stripes around the tails. We used to find the same worms under cow patties and in manure piles.

Ken I used to collect and sell night crawlers as a kid as well. You are right that they are much easier to catch when they are in "love". I always kept them in a root cellar in wooden boxes and old leaves. Never saw them reproduce either. Occasionally I would have entire box die and rot! I never figured out why. Sounds like it could have been a temperature issue or not enough food. IDK.

I think I will start a separate box for the crawlers since they are not as durable and that way if they go south then I don't kill the colony of red worms. Thanks and take care!

sean

Sean,

I'm guessing I was about 12 when I let a 2-gallon bucket of night crawlers die and rot in the trunk of my dad's car for a week. My dad walked to work most days, so the car didn't get used a lot in the heat of the summer. We always had plenty of crawlers around, so I didn't miss them after our Sunday afternoon fishing trip. The following Sunday, when we were heading to church, it was not a church event when the family entered the garage.

Ken

I know exactly how that would smell!