Red wigglers

[Saloli]

Hey I found an article that stated that red wigglers are poisonous. Any one heard about this if so has any research been done to substantiate this.

 

[dmmj]

I could only find articles related to them being poisonous to fish. It claims that it is the secretions of the worms. I can't imagine that they are poisonous since they are vermiform composters. But I don't feed hem myself.

 

[Saloli]

The one I found was about their potential to kill garter snakes and tadpoles.

 

[Angi]

Hmmm....I used to feed them to my box turtles before my red wigglers all died from too much heat . I still feed them when I dig one up and have not had a problem.

 

[yagyujubei]

I buy them from a local bait store, and have had no problems. These are not the same as local worms, though.

 

[lisa127]

I feed them to very young box turtles with no problems. My 2.25 inch box turtle eats them all the time. My 3.75 inch box turtle eats nightcrawlers.

 

[Saloli]

I've also used them as food for my turtles. Also without harm so that's why I was a little surprised to read that I guess maybe the toxin is targeted at the red wiggler's main predators in Europe the grass snake (Natrix) and true frogs (Rana) which are close relatives to the garter snakes and bull frogs.

 

[turtlemann2]

Could it not be the worm but the way in which the worms were raised? Some worms are raised in the dropping of commercial chicken egg operations, all the manure antibiotics and such would be enough to... well kill a gartner snake or tad pole .

Just a thought

 

[Saloli]

Possibly

 

[Hunahpu]

Hm, I hadn't heard that. I've feed them quite a bit, particularly when we had our hatchling. Both the hatchling and our adult ate them. (Our little guy has passed away from unknown causes, but our adult is doing quite well and still enjoys them.)