Winter Worm Farm

[Tortoise]

Hello
I apologise if this has been discussed previously.
I was wondering if anyone had tried keeping worms indoors over the winter?
We were digging up potatoes and collected quite a number of earth worms.

My Red Foots and Bells Hinges like them and it would be nice to have a few around over our long winter. Otherwise they will soon have to go without until next May, June.

So far we filled a see through cylindrical container with soil, worms, leaves, grass etc.
I assume if we add a bit of kitchen veg compost we would keep them fed?

Would they breed in this environment too?

Any suggestions appreciated before we freeze here.

Thank you!

 

[Len B]

Worms don't like light so a dark container is preferred, really all you need is moist(not soaking wet) newspaper strips, a little soil,(more paper than soil) food, (just about anything but meat) and a dark container and you are good to go. worms eat newspaper. Len

 

[dmarcus]

I had not luck breeding worms even with all the great ideas from members...

 

[Yvonne G]

I'm not so sure they'll do well indoors. They need it to be a bit on the cool side.

I have a plastic 50 gallon drum cut in half across the middle. I drilled holes all around the bottom for drainage. Then I added decomposed horse manure and newspaper. I've been adding all my kitchen scraps (potato peels, orange rinds, egg shells, etc) to it and turning it with a pitch fork daily. I started with a few small worms from the manure pile, and now I have enough that I can feed all my box turtles every day.

BUT...this is outside. I'm not sure how well it would do indoors.

 

[Tortoise]

Thanks for the suggestions.
I may wrap our container with dark paper and we can still take a peek at them through the clear sides once in a while.
I think maybe they need to be in the basement cold room and perhaps they will be happier-they are outdoors at the moment but can come in any time.

I will experiment with this indoors and see if it works out

Thanks again

 

[jaizei]

I've often seen around 70*s listed as the ideal temperature, with about 15* either way for extremes.

 

[tyler0912]

I use to have a garter snake so i use to keep worms inside...they did fine and bred?