nightcrawlers

[shaunyboy]

you are about to see how new to garters i am re my question.

nightcrawlers are they just common garden earth worms.if so can i safely feed my new garters when i get them worms straight from my garden ?

or do all worms have to be from worm farms that have been kept in sterile conditions.

i am currently sourcing garters for my wife to work with.it will be her first time owning snakes.i have worked with morelia for a few years now.i must admit ive been quite strongly drawn to garters myself.i can see our space being equaly divided between garters and my carpets in the not so distant future.i had a look in the articles section of the forum.i had to write down all the ones i took a fancy to as there were so many nice looking ones.thats without all the ones that did not have pictures to give me an example of what they looked like.so folks im really looking forward to meeting and learning from you all and of course buying some lovely garters (just dont tell my wife,she thinks they're all going to be hers,ha,ha).

cheers shaun

[guidofatherof5]

Hard to answer since I'm not aware of the native worms you have. Here in the US we have Canadian Night Crawlers as the norm.

[Tyrel26]

personally i prefer wild caught worms from a "clean" area (if you use fertilizer on your garden i wouldn't use worms from there but thats just me) worms you buy will often be raised for their use as bait for fishing and therefore may no be the healthiest choice. We had a thunderstorm here 2 nights ago, I collected about 1kg (2.2lbs) of nightcrawlers in about 30mins

[ConcinusMan]

Same here! collected about 2 lbs of night crawlers in the past couple of nights. Huge one's too! Many of them came from a dirt area between my place of work, and another food processing plant. It is definitely a pesticide-free area and is near the Columbia River and so, no polluting industry around. The area is strictly monitored for soil and water contaminants. Even so, I like to keep the worms long enough so that all the soil from where they were found, has been excreted, before I feed them to my snakes. Nothing but my own leaf compost inside them when they get used for food.

[shaunyboy]

thanks for your replys.

i was thinking of grass areas free of toxins.we used to use the soapy water method when getting worms for fishing.once ive collected my nightcrawlers whats the best way to keep them alive for a month or so.also a more legnthy period of time,say during the winter when they're harder to find.or am i better feeding an alternative food item during the winter months.
cheers shaun

[gregmonsta]

Lobworms are the same thing here mate ;). A good online source in Britain - http://www.wormsdirectuk.co.uk/acatalog/Lobworms.html

[ConcinusMan]

We just call them night crawlers. Introduced from Europe, so also sometimes called European Night Crawlers. It's the only large worm with a flattened, spiny tail and they come out and crawl around on warm rainy nights. Our native earth worms are pathetically small. I collected about 2 pounds of night crawlers during two recent rainy nights. The snakes have been pigging out the last couple of days, and I still have a lot of worms. They're especially large this year, we've had a lot of rain. Rained nearly every day since March 21st. We finally got ONE sunny day yesterday but you guessed it, it's pouring rain again. uggggh!

Bad for herping, good for night crawlers.

[shaunyboy]

gregmonsta,thanks for that mate.i had visions of the people in my village calling me the crazy old worm guy,ha,ha well they would do once they spotted me going about dousing the grass in soapy water and collecting the worms...!!

concinnusman,i feel for you mate.im stuck here in dismal scotland.the land of fog rain and more rain,ha,ha its the same kind of worms we get here with the flat tails.gregmonsta has just kindly gave me a link to a fishing bait supplier so it seems thats my food situation sorted.

cheers shaun