Raising Worms?

[kibakiba]

I raised worms for a while, they died out when my mom dampened the soil too much unfortunately. What I fed them was any left over organic fruit/veggy pieces that had been cut up and lightly sprinkled it on the top of the newspaper and peat that they were in. I also added an eighth of a teaspoon of my calcium powder per 24 worms. They seriously go crazy for it. It's usually gone within a day. It also makes it so you don't have to add as much calcium to worms, since they already have it.

[RedSidedSPR]

Thanks! I'll try that. You mean reptile supps as the vit powder?

[kibakiba]

You could use that if you wanted to, they seem to go for the calcium more than anything else. Oh, and crushed/powdered egg shells and bone meal are also EXTREMELY worth the cost. Egg power doesn't cost anything, you just crush the eggs to a fine powder. Bone meal is about 15 dollars for a pound of it. You only need a very light sprinkle of it to drive the worms crazy

[d_virginiana]

I'm not really sure you can change the nutrition value of worms like you can crickets and other feeders (not for garters obviously, lol). Like, when I gutload my frog's crickets with carrots their poo turns orange and eating them brings out his yellow and orange markings, and also if they've eaten high calcium diets, they don't need to be dusted with supplements. I've never heard of anyone gutloading worms for vitamins/minerals before, so I don't think there'd be any real difference as long as you don't feed them anything toxic

[RedSidedSPR]

it helps i think... makes them more healthy. but i agree. Not to worried about feeding them like that.

That's cool about your frog.

[kibakiba]

Well, with the calcium powder when the worms eat it, they get a bunch of white poop. So you can technically gutload them. I do it all the time.

[RedSidedSPR]

i definitely want to use calcium. What do you use?

[ConcinusMan]

I'm not really sure you can change the nutrition value of worms like you can crickets

Sure you can. Most of the calcium found in worms is in the lower half of their digestive tract. Worm castings have many times the calcium of the surrounding earth they live in.

i definitely want to use calcium. What do you use?

People tend to forget that calcium does absolutely no good, and cannot be absorbed if it doesn't also come with the proper ratio of vitamin D and phosphorus, both of which can be overused to the point of overdose.

Unless you're raising rapidly growing babies it's not really necessary to supplement and even then, it's best if you use a product formulated for reptiles such as reptical, and use it very sparingly. Personally, I've never had to use any supplements if the snakes eat plenty of fish and worms, preferably whole fish, and pinkies (or parts) occasionally.

Problems arising from deficiencies really only happen when one continuously feeds a deficient food such as fillet only, over a long period of time. I see problems arising from over supplementing much more often.

Simply raising worms in rich leaf compost and sprinkling lightly with reptical once every couple of months at feeding time, really is enough.

[kibakiba]

I use a calcium and D3 supp. I don't have it near me, but I think it might have been flukers, or something.

[RedSidedSPR]

Ok... so i buy "leaf compost" and supp when i feed every month...cool. Thanks.