any worm(red wigglers or the like) breeders?

[miranda2]

Im wanting to start a small bin of red wigglers for my pixie and pacman frogs. I just had a few questions.
How wet should the dirt be? (Im using organic topsoil and coco coir mix).
Do they need heat?
What to feed and how to gutload for more nutritious feeders?
THX

[privet01]

I just go out to my compost pile and find plenty. No need to "raise" them. I looked into raising them a few months ago. This guy here has some videos that will show you how simple cheap you can go......https://unclejimswormfarm.com/

This is the youtube link to his video.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSD1_xW8slc not a well produced video, but I think there is some honest info in it

However, he and many others selling worms will be more than happy to sell you high dollar contraptions for raising worms if that's what you need. But if you have a patch of grass you can just keep some moist mulch, shredded newspaper, kitchen scraps, and etc on, then you will have worms in a week or two.

[miranda2]

I dont want to raise them outside because our yard is infested with hookworms(thanks to the former owner). I was thinking in a tub in the basement.But I was reading red wigglers are bad for frogs, is this true?

[privet01]

I can't answer your questions about gut loading or whether the red wrigglers are bad for frogs with any factual knowledge. However IMO, from casual reading of posts here and other sites, I've never seen any stating that red wrigglers are bad. To me an earthworm is an earthworm. Just the different varieties of them have a slightly different habit and habitat. Generally, I think red wrigglers are considered a composting worm as they tend to stay shallow. Whereas night crawler's tend to stay deeper in the soil. But as far as their analysis for providing nutrition to a pet, likely not much difference.

In fact, the nutrition analysis for earthworms vs crickets is not too much different with the exception that earthworms in general have a higher calcium content and some consider their ratio of calcium to phosphorus more "ideal". And although I've never weighed them, the earthworms I've got under my compost, many of which are red wrigglers seem heavier than a similar sized cricket that I might give my FBT's, so that feeding of earthworm is giving them a bigger meal for more nutrition.

That being said, crickets are still the main source of food for my fbt's. Perhaps the thing about red wrigglers being bad for frogs was more talking about a specific frog. Possibly the digestive tract of some of the tiny frogs can't handle the aggressive wriggling of the red wrigglers.

As for gut-loading your worms, I suppose it's not much different than crickets. Just put material in your worm bins that is high in the vitamins and minerals you hope to pass to your frogs. Eggshells which I don't think work for crickets, do work for earthworms as they ingest the broken up shells to use as grinding material to help digest other food. And eggshells should be a big source of calcium.

As for the hookworm problem, I doubt that is an issue but it should be researched. It seems a little outside the cycle of infection. But maybe not.

[monster]

I don't think red wigglers are bad either, there is people that use them as feeders with no ill effects. I think what you may be reading is that the red wigglers tend secrete this stuff that taste horrible to the frogs supposedly and people have said after feeding these to there frogs they wouldn't eat any other worms. So all in all they aren't going to harm the frog, they may just taste very bad. I would maybe try one with him first to make sure he will eat them before takeing the time to raise them. They will both eat the nightcrawlers no problem.