Anyone else on here raise thier own nightcrawlers? I have a pretty good setup that i have been using for years. It use to just be a big mulch piles in the back yard where we would toss old lawn clippings, old fruit and veggies from the little garden and let it decompose. But i noticed that when i would stir the stuff up now and then with a rake i would see monster nightcrawlers in the piles. I decided to get a small shovel and dig around and sure enough there were handfuls of big nightcrawlers and smaller red wiggler worms in there. So over the years i put a small chicken wire fence around it and keep a big blue tarp over the top of it all year round, even in the dead of winter i can get bait if i need it. Just curious if anyone else has anything similar...
I always said that I was but never did. I wanted to start one in my basement, but now I don't have a basement anymore I can't start one there. LOL A friend of mine wanted me to go into business with him and raise them to sell them but that went no where. I live in an apartment now so the idea is gone for now.
If you do try it, i suggest turning the soil over every so often as well, i forgot to mention that earlier.
When I moved to the house I live in now, I discovered that the yard is full of nightcrawlers. In the summer I can go out with an LED headlamp and catch 100 or more in 30 minutes. I use a big cooler and put 2 boxes of worm bedding from wallyworld in it. Ive kept nightcrawlers for 2 1/2 years now and have bait year round. I did drill a few holes in the top and pulled the bottom drain plug out and glued a small piece of screen over it. Chip
I did something similar several years ago and I've been thinking about doing it again... I live out in the country and an aside is that sometimes rats, and even mice on occasion, tend to get caught in the chicken wire from time to time...
I like the cooler idea, Night crawlers are getting so expensive! I never built a worm farm because I'm never in the same house for more than a few years at a time. The cooler would be portable. Thanks for sharing.
Yes sir!, bout the same out back use on garden and the wife's flower gardens, but I like to fill the boxes in the spring, have an extra fridge in the barn with 3 big foam boxes, usually will last the year, but if we run out then like you said can always toss the mulch around and pick up a few hundred crawlers, and the red wigglers are the killer Bull gill bait around here, Yep doesn't take much to keep them and I hate buying bait:wink: Also have 2 of the 55 gallon barrels set on side for the minnows we get in the creek in spring and the crawdads, usually get enough in 2-3 trips to last the year. Just hate spending cash on bait.....:smile2:
Why did you put the tarp over the pile? Seems like you would want to keep it moist. I've got an area of my yard that has lots of worms IF I keep lots of leaves piled there, and IF I keep it moist. When I let it dry out, the worms leave.
The main reason why i covered it up is that i found during the summer months it would start to dry out, so i would toss a bucket of water or two on it and cover it up, the sun would heat up the tarp and pile and the moisture would stay trapped under the tarp keeping the pile nice and damp. Now when it would rain i'd run out and take the tarp off for a little while to let it get soaked good then cover it back up.
