Tom,
First of all, welcome to Pond Boss. I apologize that no one answered this question before this. I guess my friends were waiting for me. Over the years I've somehow been nominated as the chief worm dude and roadkill head chef.
I gather from your profile that you are up at the Soo. My first question would be -- why raise European night crawlers? I've got to believe that if you are in town, or have access to yards and parks in town, you could go out on a cool rainy night, and get more "Canadian" night crawlers than you could carry. I believe a large percentage of the "Canadian Night Crawlers" sold in the eastern US come from near you, the Houton-Hancock area, Northern Wisconsin, and Northern Minnesota.
If you could pick a bucketful one evening, you could easily keep a washtub full of them in the basement all year long, as long as you feed them. In your area, they could be kept in a tub in the shade for most of the summer. With several feedings of kitchen scraps and coffee grounds per week, they won't reproduce, but they won't shrink either.
When we were pre-teens and teenagers, my cousin and I picked and sold thousands and thousands of night crawlers to fishermen traveling US Route 2. As 12-year-olds, we could each pick a bucket full of crawlers in a few hours.
I figure I have about 58 years of worm catching and keeping experience. I don't know much about European Night Crawlers. I do know that my computer virus protection won't let me go to most of the sites that sell them. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it certainly makes me suspect.
Earthworms are not native to northern North America. The earthworms were all wiped out by the glaciers that scraped North America to the bedrock. The earth worms we now have in the northern parts of the continent were brought here from the dirt packing the roots of plants and trees that our grandparents brought from their Mediterranean, European, and Scandinavian homes when they emigrated. We now catch and fish with the decedents of the true European night crawlers that thrived from our grandparents.
As for three months, if your worms were happy and reproducing, you should have seen results by now. You should have thousands of small worms and eggs. The eggs look like tiny green seedless grapes. If not, they may be worms that won't reproduce in captivity. I"m assuming you are feeding them plenty of fresh non-meat food, like potato peels, lettuce scraps, coffee grounds, stale bread, etc. No citrus or tomatoes -- too acidic.
If that doesn't work, and if you can't get natural night crawlers, I'd head to the local bait shop and buy several cartons of just plain old "red wigglers."
Good luck,
Ken
Last edited by catmandoo; 08/02/10 08:43 PM. Reason: Embarrasing Spelling Errors
