Worm Care
Crickets
Store crickets in an aquarium, a cricket hotel, condo or some kind of a holding box with egg carton flats for crawl space and to give them darkness. Keep the temperature between 65 to 85 degrees. Huddled crickets are too cold, dead, black or wet looking crickets are too hot. Make sure you clean their holding boxes between orders, with water only! Always have fresh water for them with either a watering set-up or for 1 to 2 week old crickets use a moist sponge. Feed them unmediated chicken feed or dry oatmeal.
Special winter care: DO NOT OPEN YOUR CRICKET BOX until you have warmed them overnight. Warm them near a heat source like a heater or heat vent. Warming them allows the crickets to recover from their hibernation. After they have warmed up overnight you can empty them into your holding box.
European Night Crawlers
European Night Crawlers must be removed from the bag they are shipped in and transferred into a new container with fresh bedding and stored at 60-80ºF. They are shipped in enough bedding for shipping, not enough to live in.
They may lose some weight in shipping because they are shipped in dry bedding so the temps don't affect them too much. Spray a little water on them and put them in fresh bedding when you receive them and they will gain their weight back in 2 - 4 days. Their bedding material serves as their food source.
For bedding, you can use chemical free peat moss, shredded paper and water. Add enough water until a few water drops drip when you squeeze it like a sponge.
You can feed them worm chow, or table scraps.
European Nightcrawlers can also be used as a composting worm and can coexist peacefully in a composting bin with the Red Wiggler (compost worm). The European NightCrawler will grow longer and fatter than its cousin the Red Worm; they will eat their weight in food every day.
Spikes – Maggots
When you receive the spike/maggots, you MUST keep them refrigerated so they don't turn into flies. Refrigerate between 33 to 35 degrees and they will keep for weeks. Keep the Spikes dry, you may have to change the sawdust if it gets moist. Do not freeze them.
You can remove the spikes from the bag they are shipped in and put into a bowl with the lid off, this will keep them dry in the refrigerator. Don’t worry they will not crawl out of the container.
Wholesale Wax Worms
Speedy Worm’s wholesale wax worms can last several weeks at 50-60° F. This is the ideal temperature for wax worms; however, most refrigerators are colder than this. Often, the butter tray in the door of your refrigerator is the best place to find this ideal temperature.
It's better to keep wax worms at room temp with low humidity than it is to store them in a refrigerator that is colder than 40° F in its warmest area. After warming to room temperature they will become more active.
Wax worms should be stored in the cup they arrive in. Wax worms have entered a stage in their life cycle where they no longer consume food. They are living off the fat supplies in their bodies. This means you'll see them growing smaller the longer you keep them.
- Always remove any dead (black) wax worms from the container.
- It's extremely important that they be stored in low humidity.
- If the bedding becomes moist, lids should be removed to allow moisture to escape. Bedding material can include sawdust or aspen/pine shavings (the same material used in hamster cages).
Compost Worms
Composting worms (red worms) are easy to raise and need very little care. They need a worm bed, water, and food. The food can be your table scraps, decaying fruits and vegetable, horse, cow, pig, rabbit manure, newspapers and damp cardboard. For bedding you can use peat moss with shredded paper and water, leaves, dirt, or coconut core. Make sure you do not have any chemicals in the bedding; chemicals kill worms. The composting worms (red worms) can eat 1/2 to 2/3 of their weight in food per day. Digestion of the food will produce castings. Red worm castings are a natural fertilizer for your plants, they don’t burn roots.
When feeding them to your critters it is recommended that you remove any of the substrate that may be stuck to the worm prior to feeding your pet (not a problem when using them as bait). A quick swim in a bowl of water will easily remove most substrate from your red worms.
If your pet ingests the dirt it won't hurt it whatsoever, it just takes up stomach space. It is always a good idea to provide a diverse diet when it comes to your pet's food selection. This keeps them healthy and allows them to have a balanced diet.
Red worms are a popular food sources for turtles, fish, amphibians and birds.
Mealworms & Giant Mealworms
Keep them refrigerated at 40 to 50 degrees. Avoid freezing them.
Every 5 to 7 days remove them from the refrigerator and feed them a few small apple, potato or banana cubes, allow them to warm up and start moving around. Leave them out for another hour or two. Refrigerate them again.
The next time you feed remove the old apple, potato or banana cubes and replace them with new ones.
It is very important that you remove any moldy apple, potato or banana cubes or they will kill the Mealworms.
Super Mealworms
Super mealworms need to be kept at room temperature around 75 to 80 degrees. Keep them in bran with an apple, carrot or potato cube for water.
The next time you feed the mealworms remove the old apple, potato or banana cubes and replace them with new ones. It is very important that you remove any moldy apples, potatoes or bananas or they will kill the Mealworms.
Super worms must be kept at room temperature. Any colder than 60° or hotter than 85° and they will rapidly start to die. Because of this they can't be stored in the refrigerator.
Because of their castings, Super worms in a tray can be 20° hotter than the surrounding air. Be sure they are being sifted every 3 to 4 days to keep them cool in summer time. The wheat bran bedding should be no more than 2" deep (we keep ours at 1.5") so that heat and moisture can escape through the wheat bran bedding and not be 'trapped'. The heat, moisture, and castings are the perfect combination for bacteria or fungus to develop on your bedding material causing a bad odor.
Wholesale Canadian Nightcrawlers
Our Canadian Nightcrawlers are to be stored at an approximate temperature of 40 to 45ºF. Keep in mind that these are not the same worms you will find in your yard. They are direct from Canada and are accustomed to cooler temperatures. Storing them at a temperature higher than the recommended will significantly reduce their life span.
Bulk nightcrawlers need to be immediately placed in high quality topsoil or worm bedding and moved to a temperature-controlled environment. Make sure the topsoil is chemical free! Chemicals kill worms. They are shipped in enough bedding for shipping, not enough to live in.
Canadian Nightcrawlers will last several weeks if properly cared for. It may become necessary to replace the bedding if you have had the worms for more than a couple weeks. We recommend flipping the box over and completely re-bed them every 10 days. Canadian Nightcrawlers do not require special food, they come from the ground and eat dirt. Recommended bedding is 1 pound of dirt/bedding per 1 pound of worms. Make sure the topsoil is chemical free! Chemicals kill worms.
We ship Canadian nightcrawlers in Styrofoam coolers with ice packs. This cautious shipping approach has proven extremely successful over the years.
Nightcrawlers are excellent universal fishing bait and provide valuable nutrients when used in the diets of birds and reptiles.
Leeches
Leeches are easy to keep alive. They are not sensitive to temperature changes, and they require relatively little oxygen. Leeches can be kept alive for weeks, even without food if you take care of them. Do not use water with salt or chorine it in, non-chlorinated tap water in most areas is suitable for leeches or lake water would be the best. Do not use distilled water alone because its extreme purity can be harmful to the leeches' metabolic balance. Keep the water clean. Change the water when it shows signs of becoming dirty or polluted.
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