Red worms for Pacific Chorus Frogs?

[fish4all]

No worries jerome, just wanting to let you know what they looked like a what type they are. They are actually very easy to culture and you can have 1000's of them in about 6 months if you set up a large bin or 3.

[Murray of the Deep]

No worries jerome, just wanting to let you know what they looked like a what type they are. They are actually very easy to culture and you can have 1000's of them in about 6 months if you set up a large bin or 3.

i tried those african night crawlers but i failed to culture them , they end up escaping.... can i have a picture of your worm bin?and also how to feed and care for them please!! i want to culture these worms.

[fish4all]

Not African night crawlers. These are much smaller. The key to culturing them, keep them under 90 degrees F, 32 d C. Too hot will kill them. Too cold will slow them down but not kill off a colony.

Get a shallow bin, if you want co culture them indoors. Outdoors, build a large wooden, brick or other type of frame as large as you want and up to 2 feet deep. Start the bin off with shredded newspaper, coconut coir or grass cutting but make sure they are dry and chemical free. You can also use shredded leaf litter. Next put food scraps in for them and let theme at them.

DO NOT ADD: eggs, dairy of any kind, meat, bones, or any other animal product. It is more about the fats than anything and they can ruin the whole culture very quickly and kill them all.

Be patient, I started one culture from worms I caught outside, less than 100 of them in a sweater box. It took 8 months to see any real population growth and another 5 months before I had a thriving colony. f you really want to see a lot of them quickly start with a good 2,000 to 5,000 of them for large bins. Large meaning 20-50 quart. Anything large and you may need more than that to get a larger enough colony going to feed off of a lot.

Mine right now are slowed down a lot. I have them in an unheated garage and they have pretty much stopped. For me it doesn't matter because I want their casting for fertilizer. I don't feed them off. If you want a steady supply you have to keep them between 70 and 85 F for faster production.

I will get a picture when I find my camera but they are nothing more than a plastic tub with a hole cut in the top with mesh hot glued over the hole and a dozen holes drilled about half way up. I also drill holes in the bottom to let out excess moisture. Any sitting water in the bottom will kill them causing an acidic environment.

Oh and if they are escaping then the bedding has something wrong with it or they need food. Mine do not try to leave at all unless their numbers have simply gotten way too high.

[killerecho]

Nightcrawlers are likely too big for pacific chorus frogs, unless you chopped the worms up and fed them to the frogs while still moving. They should take red wigglers in the same manner, or even whole if the worms were small enough.

[fish4all]

I did give them a try and every one of them spit them back out. I think 2 of them even gave me a dirty look after spitting it back out. So much for that option. Oh well, at least the worms make great fertilizer. And a safe one for terrariums/vivariums.

[Murray of the Deep]

I did give them a try and every one of them spit them back out. I think 2 of them even gave me a dirty look after spitting it back out. So much for that option. Oh well, at least the worms make great fertilizer. And a safe one for terrariums/vivariums.

hey fish4all i red that these worms are not preferred for feeding frogs because they can release a foul odor and awful taste that's why they spitted them back out.

[Sandy Bear]

Christopher: There is A LOT of bad information out there concerning earthworms. I breed Red Wrigglers, African Nightcrawlers and European Nightcrawlers. All three of these worms are used in vermicomposting. I feed all three of these worms to my amphibians and reptiles - including my garter snakes - and have not had any problems with them. I will not feed any Canadian Nightcrawler though, as these worms are normally WC and I won't feed WC feeders to my pets any more.

All of my bins I compost "safe foods". Bascially, everything comes out of the fridge or from my cardboard/paper recycle bin that is appropriate to use with the worms.
I do not feed any "outside" materials, with the exception of my African Nightcrawlers, I will give them dried leaves but only if they've been baked in the oven first (my reject leaf litter pile).
The only dirt I add to my compost bins are either coco-fiber or peat moss, as both substrates are safe to use with most types of amphibians. If I were to use any sort of "soil" from say outside, I would be sure to sterilize it prior to adding it to my tubs.

The earthworm you want to avoid is "Bimastrus foetida" (aka the manure worm), this worm is usually used by people dealing with large amounts of cow manure. This worm has a yellow line on it's body, and tastes terrible enough that fish will reject this feeder.

All types of earthworms will produce a foul taste, it's a defence mechanism.

Not all types of herps will eat earthworms though. I find that dessert herps (beardies, leos) do not like earthworms and tree frogs do not like earthworms. They show interest in the prey, but usually spit it out, I think it's a texture thing as it's not a typical feeder that they would naturally be eating. There are exceptions to every group though, so you will have to try them out on your pets and see how it goes.

Earthworms can also be used for human consumption, and I know that when people are using them for food, they will normally remove the worms from the tub and put them in a (ventilated) tupperware container filled with moistened cornmeal for about two days before cooking with them. They do this to purge the worms gut of any soil that would make them gritty when you are eating them.

[deeishealthy]

Earthworms can also be used for human consumption, and I know that when people are using them for food, they will normally remove the worms from the tub and put them in a (ventilated) tupperware container filled with moistened cornmeal for about two days before cooking with them. They do this to purge the worms gut of any soil that would make them gritty when you are eating them.

*gag*