Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone know of a good store to get earthworms from?

http://www.anapsid.org/resources/preysources.html

There's a link to a good list of mail order sellers if you wanted to mail order them.

PHRatz

sorry PH...but I have to disagree, don't do that. it is much easier to go to the local walmart sporting goods section and buy the tub of nightcrawlers they sell for $2-$3. keep them in the fridge and they'll last at least a month, depending on how many you feed.

Mick

The ones in walmart are disgusting. They're not exacty something you want to be feeding straight out of the container to your turtles. If you get worms from a fishing place, you'd want to clean them out by putting them in fresh dirt for a while. I doubt they'd last long outside a fridge though.

well of course you need to open the container and check for freshness anytime you buy worms. goes without saying. some have been on the shelf longer than others, like with any kind of live bait or prey. no personal offense meant, but I have to chuckle, "pink nail polish", it didn't suprise me you were disgusted by an earthworm. they're all dirty. most girls don't like to touch them. what you are probably seeing in those containers is just the result of condensation from keeping them in the fridge. it's no harm. just a little mud or wet dirt, which I'd be suprised to find an earthworm in anything less. the only way to avoid that is to dig them up yourself and use them right away, or keep them at room temperature in a low humidity environment. not exactly what earthworms are used to either and they won't last as long that way. what you should check for is good color and activity and rinse them off before giving.

Hmmm...what would Uncle Sigmund say....

Depending on what your setup is like (say, if you have a big enclosure with lots of leaf litter) you could order worms in bulk once a year, and let your turtles forage.
I was all set to do that this year, but didn't have to because I dumped ALOT of leaves in the enclosure last fall, and the worms materialized on their own.
If you build it, they will come.
Stephanie

yeah that's a great idea for outdoor enclosures. forgot to ask what the setup was.

I also keep horned lizards, and my ex decided a couple years ago she wanted baby turtles for christmas. she wanted a sulcata at first, but I talked her out of it. once I got her the box turtles though, guess who had to feed them the worms and insects? that's right...me. we had to alternate who was doing the feeding because she only wanted to do it on "veggie & fruit day". we have a custody and visitation agreement now, so she's had to get used to doing it herself when I'm away and need her to babysit the animals. one day I just made her reach down in the "goo" and pull out that slimey creepy crawlie.

not saying you "girly gurls" can't be trained to do it...just that it's in your nature to be "eeewww!!" about slimey creepy crawlies and such

Mick

oh yeah...p.s....Steph, git yer mind outta tha gutter!!

Gutter? What gutter?

Actually it just so happens that I am wearing pink nail polish right now lol!!
While it may be true that most girls don't like to touch worms, it's also true that most girls don't keep pet reptiles, tarantulas, rats, & frogs either.
I breed 2 species of cockroach & I breed meal worms for herp food, I often spend time digging in the dirt under my porch for fresh earthworms & grubworms if I haven't bought nightcrawlers.
I've found though that with the big slimy nightcrawlers hemostats work great to get them out & wash them off so you can set them in front of a turtle.

btw I always claim this because it's true, I have the cleanest rats & roaches in town!

PHRatz

ROACHES!!!EEWWW!!! I hate roaches almost as much as I hate red wasps...got an ongoing war with the red wasp now for the last 3 or 4 years. doesn't matter where I see them...I'll chase one down to kill it!!

I think I'm a pretty tough guy, being from Texas, and ex-military and all...blood and the sight of internal organs don't bother me. but roaches I can't do! even though I know they're no dirtier than the crickets I keep. but we all grew up with different propaganda on the cricket.

Mick

I personally try to avoid handling slugs directly, primarily because the slime does not come off with an ordinary handwashing.
Talk about nasty...

What we tried to achieve with our enclosure was a level of self-sufficiency: we still make meals and feed the turtles a couple of times a week, but we add leaves every fall, have rotting logs in there too, & we let the wild strawberries grow, etc., because we wanted them to forage on their own, too. And they do.

Buying worms in small quantities locally adds up over time, so you should consider alot of different options.

Stephanie

Mick ROFL!!
I'm Texan too but here on the west side of this state we don't have the giant flying American cockroaches aka palmetto bugs. So the roaches I have don't gross me out too much. The ones I breed for turtle food do not fly.
I have a herper friend who's husband are a real live Aggie he's a big guy, Army veteran who's originally from the Corpus or Galveston area not sure exactly but he is not from the west. He grew up with giant flying cockroaches so when I gave her roaches to use for herp food, about a month after that he couldn't take it anymore & she had to get rid of them LOL!

PHRatz

where 'bouts in west Texas? you got plenty of them big red harvester ants out there?

Mick
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"A man that should call every thing by it's right name, would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy."

The Complete Works of Goerge Savile, First Marquess of Halifax, 1912.

Mick,
Sorry I didn't reply sooner but between my computer crashing & my neighborhood going insane I got lost!

I are near the NM border in the hometown of Dubya & Laura. You bet I have ants, ants, & more ants! I don't kill them, I feed them so these little endangered guys will show up to feed at my house:

YEAH! that's what I'm talking about! you lucky devil...you have Phrynosoma Cornutum running around your yard. I hate you...just kidding!

no, no I certainly didn't mean kill the ants! they are far too important. I wouldn't even use an chemicals in the yard if I had harvester ants around.

Dubya's which hometown? Midland, Odessa, Dallas, Houston, Crawford, Lubbock, Austin, or New Haven, Connecticut? LOL
I'm sure I know where your talking about.

I love boxies too, and used to keep snakes, but horned lizards are my primary project and study. I have rescued and rehabbed a few Texas Horned Lizards that were stepped on or moved from development areas. the last one was a rescue from a demolition area near Witchita Falls that a little girl was keeping and couldn't be returned to the wild. presently I am raising Solare ( Regal Horned Lizards ).

you catch any of these ants?

Mick

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"A man that should call every thing by it's right name, would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy."

The Complete Works of Goerge Savile, First Marquess of Halifax, 1912.

Oh I know you didn't mention anything about killing the ants but my neighbors often advise me on how to rid my property of them, mind you I didn't ask for the advice, I just get it anyway. I've told them why I don't do anything but it seems to fall on deaf ears.
Same for the woodrats living at the edge of my property, they're waaaay out in the ally far behind my fenced in yard, I don't care if they're out there because these are the same woodrats we chased out from under the house. As long as they aren't living under my house anymore, I don't care where they are.
I wonder why the neighbors think anything needs to be done about wild animals & why they think anything could be done about them? (we live in the on the outskirts of town, in the city limits but basically out in the country)
The neighbors think that rattlesnakes live in the den with the rats & we need to DO something about it. Rattlesnakes living with rats? bwahahahahahhahaha ok yeah a snake may pop into the woodrat burrow from time to time but I don't think it's for shelter. ROFL
These people don't know a rattlesnake from a coachwhip so..
With a sulcata tortoise roaming the whole yard, box turtles in their pen when the pen is built again.. why do they think I'd want chemicals on my lawn?

Anyway I've never tried to catch ants but anything is possible.
PHRatz

yeah, that's pretty funny and sadly ignorant...especially of people living out that way. I still run into people who think a coachwhip will bite it's tail and roll down the hill after you like a wagon wheel!! ROFLMAO I used to keep Crotalus Atrox too ( Western Diamondack ) a few years back. they are being overhunted though, out of ignorance in these "Rattlesnake roundups" and the like. these knuckleheads fail to realize that it's the rattlesnakes that keep down the rodents. I've never heard a case where a snake decimated a crop or ravaged a sack of livestock feed!LOL

Mick
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"A man that should call every thing by it's right name, would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy."

The Complete Works of Goerge Savile, First Marquess of Halifax, 1912.

ack I'm only 100 miles from Sweetwater, I never go to the roundup because it's so disgusting. I went one time about 20 years ago, not knowing what it was about. Once I found out, I never went back.
Gotta watch out for those wagonwheel snakes though.ROFL
We have lots of C. atrox around here; my little weenie dog was even bitten in 2001, he got treatment right away & lived through it just fine. I'm happy to see that this year for the first time a whole colony of Mexican ground squirrels has moved into my yard. I know they'll mob a rattlesnake but usually not die if bitten so hopefully they'll keep the snakes away from inside my fence, away from the dog.
As for people being dreadfully uninformed about the wildlife around us..
There are ornate box turtles all over the place, you see too many on the road at certain times, people grow up here seeing them all their lives & still think they are snapping turtles.
I always ask why do you think that's a snapping turtle? They answer because they'll snap at you. lol
Well yeah anything that has a mouth can bite but that doesn't make it a snapping turtle. LOL

PHRatz

I never said I don't like to touch them did I? Heck, I dig them up in the yard all the time. I hand feed them to the turtles.
Just the ones in the store are, lets just say, not raised in a most healthy right out of the container for reptiles sort of way.

I buy Walmart worms occasionally for my turtles and usually dump them into a bucket of potting soil. The last batch I had apparently wasn't in the best shape because they didn't last. Talk about yuck. Now that it's warm I'm back to digging better fresh worms for the turts. And I was very proud of myself the day I picked one up barehanded! LOL I really hate handling them and keep a pair of gardening or work gloves handy when worm hunting. And I use chopsticks to pick up the mealworms.

welll allll rightieee thennn!!!!
ok you "gurls"...I'm impressed. you are proof there are rare exceptions to the rule. BUT....you are an exception, because you are rare....

I'm surrounded by females that would come un-!@$%&@'-glued if you approached them with a worm or something. I told my cousin Sarah one time, she had a "june bug" ( flying beetle ) on the back of her shirt, just as I was trying to get it...she went completely APE* and wouldn't hold still...like a rodeo bull straight out the shoot with the flankin' strap too tight...like she misheard heard me say ( soft voice )"Sarah, I don't mean to startle you, but, you have a BIGASS COBRA ON YOUR BACK!!!!
DANG! she made the ordeal last like 5 times longer that way.
No, No, wait...it's more like this...."Um, Sarah you know that big slimey thing from "Alien"...you know, the alien (wispering in I lost my voice mode )....it's behind youuuu!!
completely moved to tears... over a BUG!
funny though.

in closing, I would like to say that, yes, handpicked ( pesticide free ) worms are best. the walmart near me sells quickly though since I'm near major fishing. handpicked takes a little effort and a lot more getting dirty, but it seems we have plenty of tomboys that don't mind dirt and bugs...all feminine with the pink nail polishes too!!!hmmm...and they like reptiles. the perfect woman? if you like poker, Texas country music, or airplanes, I might hafta holler at cha'!

Mick

Laure I finally found some chopsticks at a Chinese buffet recently but then when we left I forgot to get some!
I'm good with a plastic spoon or the hemostats though.
When I was a little kid I loved my anoles but I couldn't stand to touch their food so I got to be really good with using a plastic spoon. When I grew up I finally got over it all & just started using my hands & what caused that was crickets getting loose. It was jump on it & get it with my hand or wind up listening to it all night because it's lost somewhere in the house. Being kept awake all night or touching the bug, what to do what to do... wasn't a hard decision lol.
Still with the slimy stuff, I prefer my hemostats as long as I have some to use.
PHRatz

I ain't picking up a cricket bare handed. Nope, nope, nope. And that's not because I think they're yucky it's from working at Petco for 3 years and having to get crickets for people out of the smelly bin and having them jump out of the counter onto my shirt. I really can't stand handling bugs but I have critters that need them so I deal with it and figured out how to get around the handling part. LOL

Mick you have a point. Whether to mail order or not probably would depend on how many worms you want & whether or not you wanted to start a colony. It may be better to mail order if you want to do that but if you don't then actually...
I buy mine at Walmart too lol because there's no such thing as a bait store around here but I do worry about how clean they are.
I put them in clean substrate for a few days before feeding to get them cleaned out & not have to worry about what they were fed before I got them.

PHRatz

The reason I have to buy his worms now is that my parents are spraying chemicals on our lawn now. And I was wondering if it is ok to even have him out there (i've heard both yes and no), thanks for the help.

To be safest, keep your turtle away. Longterm exposure to certain insecticides has been linked to illnesses in wild box turtle populations.
Herbicides are nasty as well, and even fertilizers could be irritants.
Stephanie

no it is not safe to have your turtle out there. he could also eat one of the insects out there that has been sprayed!!!

Thanks for the info. I am going to try to get him to not spray the bach yard so he can go out there. Can anyone give me an estimate about how much it would cost to build an outdoor pen? It doesn't have to be anything fancy, it just has too look descent.