Worm colonies?

[Jeff B]

I would love to have a giant earthworm bin or bins to have a constant supply of worms. Oh wait, I do......... it's called Walmart.

[Kantar]

there is a natural worm colony in my sisters front yard, on any given summer night (if its cool enough) I can pluck a dozen out of the ground, my sister doesn't mind, she says it helps getting rid of all the bumps from her lawn

[Artic Exotics]

Ok so up here where i am in AK our walmart only supplies the worms in summer. Not in winter at all. So what ive done is i got ahold of a batch of canadian NC's from steve (many thanks again) and one of these

The Worm Factory® 5-Tray Recycled Plastic Worm Composter - Green - Worm Composters at Hayneedle

And yes its true its a composter bin for redworms but it works really well and Ill tell you why.

Nightcrawlers actually borrow pretty deep out in the wild. This thing is 28" deep and the worms can climb up and down the whole thing. I keep this out in the solarium which has about 60 degree highs at best and some pretty low lows at night. Because of my latitude to their native Canada i dont sweat the lows too much, as its pretty much the same temperature and daylight fluctuations as they would have in the wild (im pretty sure nightcrawlers are not aware of political boundaries between Alaska and Canada lol).

I use coconut fiber and newspaper strips for bedding in each section. they seem to like this.

Every now and then usually when i go to harvest for my garters, i will notice that they have chewed through their collard greens and I replace those. dark leafy vegtables are high in calcium and whats good for the worms is good for the snakes ;-)

every week or so the bottom tray will fill with excess water and well earthworm poo. Use the spicket and collect this for your house plants. they will love it. if you dont have houseplants sell it to a nursery, this is called "worm tea" and people will pay for it.

I have once this season needed to replace the eco-earth newspaper blend bedding because the worms completely composted it. I sold this blackened soil to a green house for $15 and they want more as soon as its ate through again. It is seriously great stuff for plants.

My worms are so ridiculously easy to care for.
1.) I drain with the spicket once a week, takes a minute. this keeps the environment clean and failure to do so is my personal opinion on why so many people are having a hard time keeping their worms even though they keep ideal temps, think about it worms breathe through their skin, if they are breathing in their own liquid poo all the time....

2) I throw in a couple dark leafy vegetables and a little CLEAN eggshell. Im not sure exactly what the eggshell does for them but a lot of people do this and im just going to throw them away anyway so why not?

3.) keep the substrate moist, you just cant let them dry out. In this system the drain at the bottom will keep you from over-watering and drowning them so the system makes this stupid easy.

4.) change their bedding when it gets black, hard and crumbly. about once every 3 months or once a season. This is the most labor intensive part of the whole process but it only takes less than an hour.

Now heres the coolest part. About a month ago I thought for sure that I had developed some sort of parasitic infection in my bin because I had just thousands of these clearish white threads all over in my substrate. So I took a scoop out and brought it to my local nursery. They didnt know what it was either, but we figured that it was the larval stage of something so I reared it in a separate container in my solarium to see if we would be able to indentify the "infection". It was the "larval stage" of my nightcrawlers themselves! So now I have these ridiculously small nightcrawlers I am raising alongside with my adults. Apparently my colony is breeding and I'm not even sure how i got them to erm.. "do it". How exciting is that?!

[guidofatherof5]

Scroll down in this article for a great photo of worms making more worms.

Earthworm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[-MARWOLAETH-]

I'd like to try and see if a box or bucket that's been filled will soil and buried in the ground up to the lid would work as a suitable worm culture.

[KephrenJorgensen]

I was thinking of a similar idea Will. Just have a fine screen at the bottom as opposed to a wall. The only problem would be changing the substrate.

[Mommy2many]

I have kept slugs for the winter. Use a chinese food container, fill with dirt, add lettuce and place in the fridge. You can also collect eggs when you find them. Pull them out every so often, add fresh lettuce, air and warmth. Stick back in fridge. If you collect enough, you won't even have to worry about them reproducing. They will live in the fridge all winter.

[-MARWOLAETH-]

I was thinking of a similar idea Will. Just have a fine screen at the bottom as opposed to a wall. The only problem would be changing the substrate.

Throw in some leaves and let the worms make their own substrate

[Ctah_Lu]

I have kept slugs for the winter. Use a chinese food container, fill with dirt, add lettuce and place in the fridge. You can also collect eggs when you find them. Pull them out every so often, add fresh lettuce, air and warmth. Stick back in fridge. If you collect enough, you won't even have to worry about them reproducing. They will live in the fridge all winter.

How many slugs are enough and what kind of slugs do you have?, I have colected only 5 slugs and my slugs look like this:

[Mommy2many]

I collect them in the fall; as many as I can get. I am only feeding one Dekayi and she will eat earthworms as well. You can also use a styrofoam cooler as a holding place. Just fill with dirt, leaves and feed them lettuce. Keep them cool or they will die and rot. Make sure that the lid is on tight (I used packing tape) cause they will get out

Slugs need to be kept cool (they do better that way) but cannot freeze or you get slug mush

What kind of snake are you feeding?

Also, my slugs look like yours; I also get small black ones. Mine are small to medium. I live in the North East, we do not have MONSTER slugs here