Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I currently buy all of the bugs and worms for my turtle to eat such as....

wax worms
supper worms
night crawlers
Crickets

Does anyone have experience,advice,tips,ect.to succesfully breed any of these bugs or worms?
Thanks
Mary-Kate

Many years ago i tryed to rise worms for fishing but i never had any luck with it. Now that i keep box turtles i have found a place in the woods near my home were i can find lots of worms. In this woods there is a dry stream that only flows when there is a storm from run off form the nearby houses. Anyway along this stream there are places on its bank were leavs and grass are left when the steam is flowing. I have found that if i dig in this area ( the soil is not pack but very loose) there are lots of worms in this organic matter. I dont know waht kind of worms they are. They are not the common garden worm or night crallwers. Many are big like night crallers. I call them wiggle worms because they wiggle a lot when pick them up. My advice is to not try to breed worms, although if you look on the internet you will find sights that tell you how to, but to try to find them in the woods were they live. If any one know anything about the wiggle worms that i have found, please post a message. I looked on the internet and there are lots of sights for selling worms but not much info on the differt types of worms that live in the woods.
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Jack

Jack,

Hey thanks for the information I appreciate you taking the time to write back. The woods is a good idea. I live in the city so it was recomended to me not to dig up the worms in the back yards due to the lawns being treated with cemicals. I don't live to far from an area by a stream so that might be the idea that I go with.
Thanks again
Mary-Kate

Good luck in your hunt for worms and bugs. Here in NJ its starting to get cold at night (45degress) and my turtles have just about stopped eating for the year, and getting ready for hibernation. They ate a lot this summer so im not worried about them.
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Jack

Jack, be warned... I found a place that sounds exactly like yours. Found these big wigglers and have beed digging up worms for years from this place in the woods. Anyway, about 3 weeks ago, I dug some worms up, stored it away in the frig. I noticed a worm that was light in light in color, thought nothing of it and fed it (I cut it in half) to 2 of my hatchlings. One died 24 hours after eating it, the other nearly died, (I expected to die as fast as the first one - little movement - and the movement was totally uncordinated. But is just now starting to eat by itself after immediately puting it in a tank with a steady temp of 86 degrees for about 4 days. On the 5th day I decided to feed it bits of worm with a tweezer and it coordination was still totally off, I had to shove the bits of worm into its mouth. (that worm must have been highly toxic) It is just now beginning to eat on its own. After hand feeding it for close to 2 weeks, I figure its coordination is now at about 95 percent. (Steady but consistant improvement) A warning to all, if it is a earthworm light in color (pale white) - DON'T FEED IT to your boxies. My other hatchlings were fed worms with the "regular" worm color and they are all fine. NEVER again. I know boxies could eat poison mushrooms with no effect except to people that ate the turtles from reading about it, but a "light" colored earthworm is a NO-NO. (I would also discard all the worms that were picked up with it and will not go to that general area also.)Just for everyones info and my opinion from my experience. Harry

Thanks for the advice Harry

I know that this worms are not very hardy and die very easy and turn a light color. So far i have not had any hatchlings to feed. I have been feeding the dark colored wiggle worms to my adult tutles and they seem to love them. they eat so many that they dont want much else to eat. Some of these worms are pretty big they look like small snakes and its fun to watch the turtls suck them down.
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Jack

I currently have tubs of meal worms growing and a tub of red worms in my basement. The meal worms are very easy to raise and you can fed them to any type of reptile or birds. I feed the mealies to bluebirds out in the yard. I occasionally fed newly shed worms and beatles to the box turtles. The red worms are a little more difficult to raise. I bought them from wormman.com and they have detailed directions for raising red worms and mealworms.
Hope this helps,
Phil

Phil,

Thanks for the information and I appreciate you taking the time to write back. I will go to the web site and take a look.
Thanks again Phil!
Mary-Kate

Try wormman.com - he has systems for growing earthworms.

Katrina

Thank you for the referal.
Mary-Kate