Night crawler temp.

[Matts inverts]

I jut bought son night crawlers and I was told they were European but when I got them, they are clearly Canadian ones. I want to breed them but I’m confused about the temps to breed them at. Do I have to keep them in a fridge or can I keep them at room temp?

 

[DreadMan]

60 degrees is optimum. I have never bred night crawlers but it seems pretty easy. get a plastic container, drill some REALLY small holes in the sides near the top and put in compost and soil. Mist once at night and once in the morning. Only put in food once their previous food has been finished. They should breed eventually. For food, basically anything works. I have even heard about people feeding them Styrofoam and plastic bottles, but that might just be meal worms. Some words of advice, if you do this your son will possibly become really interested in bugs. Feed his imagination, if he wants to move on from night crawlers to pill bugs or other insects, support him!

 

[Liquifin]

Are you breeding them as a feeder colony or as a pet colony?

60 degrees is optimum. I have never bred night crawlers but it seems pretty easy. get a plastic container, drill some REALLY small holes in the sides near the top and put in compost and soil. Mist once at night and once in the morning. Only put in food once their previous food has been finished.

I agree with this, but I would say anywhere from 45F-60F is fine, but I would keep them in the low-mid 50F's range if possible.

I have even heard about people feeding them Styrofoam and plastic bottles, but that might just be meal worms.

Unless your using them for bait or fishing, do not feed them anything non-organic. Plastic and Styrofoam is not an ideal feeding source for food if using them for feeding animals. I suggest dead leaves that safely collected, uneaten fruits and vegetables, and anything organic of the sort. I heard some people use paper, but I don't trust it enough to call it safe for night crawlers that will be used for feeders.

 

[schmiggle]

I had European nightcrawlers for a while; worm care is identical for feeder species except for temperature. I used newspaper as a base food source that I supplemented with leftover vegetables. Ideally the newspaper should use a soy-based ink, which is almost certainly more common than you think. I didn't feed colored pages. My salamanders ate those happily for a year.

Some issues I had that I wasn't expecting:
--Unless you have a tight-fitting lid to your bucket your worms will crawl out. I ended up cutting out an old t-shirt to put under the lid in order to prevent this problem (I was using an old compost bucket).
--I once put in soggy cooked vegetables leftover from making stock and they rotted and stank almost instantly from the oil that soaked into them. I never used anything cooked after that.

 

[Matts inverts]

I got a tub with coco choir, aspen, and left over leaf litter and an egg crate on top. I ended up keeping them in the fridge. It’s very surprising how people don’t want night crawlers in the fridge. Haha. I new the Canadian ones when they measured a foot long. Hopefully they breed and produce some castings but if not, I know a friend with chickens. I don’t know why but my Pac-Man frog won’t take it.