wormadmin Staff answered 7 years ago
Something I often get asked about is putting bait worms (africans or euros) in small plastic farms commonly used for “normal” composting worms.
I’ve long stated on my website that it is hard or next to impossible to do reliably – and I try to steer people away from doing it. It’s in my website terms and conditions.
If you are just looking to keep worms alive to feed your pet or to go fishing over a few weeks, the worms will last for 4 to 8 weeks in a simple bait bucket.
If you pick up worms from me locally, I supply a free pre-made bait bucket – and they come with instructions.
When I send you bait worms in the post, I include instructions on how to make a bait bucket. https://thewormman.com.au/how-to-make-a-fishing-bait-bucket-for-worms/
I even made instructions for how to make a bait worm esky to keep them cool over a long summer holiday:
https://thewormman.com.au/how-to-make-a-fishing-bait-esky-for-worms/
I have people buying them from me for pets – and they last 4 to 8 weeks in the buckets easily – see the instructions for keeping bait here:
https://thewormman.com.au/bait-worms-care-instructions-for-keeping-bait-worms/
If people email me or call me, I tell them not to. I just don’t like setting people up for failure – and I don’t like taking their money on that basis. I’m sure there ARE people selling worms that WILL. But not me.
My commercial system is much different from the domestic ones – and as it has taken me literally YEARS to perfect it – I don’t teach how to do it. You see, people who want to raise worms to sell want to know how to do it. I get asked questions all the time.
You see, I FREELY teach how to farm “normal compost worms” – like red wigglers. But I do not teach how to raise bait. It’s not that the africans eat anything much different to normal composting worms, but that they aren’t suited to small stacking farms or plastic boxes. I won’t list the reasons, as that is teaching my system, really.
Reds are SIMPLE to raise by comparison to africans. And enough people have issues just raising reds (probably from not having the right info, and believing some well meaning but misinformed person on the internet somewhere!)
Don’t get me started on how hard euros are to raise in comparison to africans !
If someone WERE to want to give it a crack, a GREAT starting point would be to do lots of research – and at least take note of what I teach for normal composting worms.
I have a free FAQ guide, here:
https://thewormman.com.au/free-guide-to-worm-farming/
I also have a paid-for bigger book of answers, you’ll see it in the sidebar to the left of my site.
I also have about 80 Youtube videos to help you.
Why am I even posting this info?
Well, recently someone got me to post bait worms to them (africans) – and I had no clue what they were intending to do. I thought they were for bait, after all. I sent them perfectly good bait sized africans. Big ones.
But. they didn’t communicate with me, you see.
A week later and they email me to say their worms look sick and the farm smells. They sent me pictures. Sure enough – “protein poisoning” / string of pearls / ammonia poisoning. You can read more about that syndrome here on my site:
https://thewormman.com.au/protein-poisoning/
So take my advice – don’t try to raise bait worms unless you’re prepared to fail and fail again while you learn – and if you are going to try – PLEASE learn about normal composting worms, and do some research first.
And, again, I’m sorry – I don’t teach how to raise bait worms.