I ordered a culture of L. rubellus from Goliad farms back in September. Here's my experience:
The culture came as a gross, rotten mess of worms with the majority of the worms dead and falling apart. I contacted Goliad right away and was very pleased with their response. Based on what I read of their guarantee I figured at best I would get another culture at no cost but still have to pay the really expensive shipping charges (which cost me more than the actual culture, by the way). This was not the case, however; Charles at Goliad sent me a whole other culture at absolutely no charge.
He asked me quite a few questions to try and figure out what went wrong with that shipment and he tried other shipping methods for the second culture, like more ice packs and a drier medium for the worms. He also directed me to keep the medium that the worms came in, as there were more than likely egg worm cases in it and that these very well could have survived. So I did keep it and put the medium as well as any live worms I was able to sift out into my previously prepared Rubbermaid tote. And I hoped for the best.
I got the second shipment a few days later and it was again a gross rotten mess, composed of mostly dead worms. By this time both Goliad and I were frustrated and kind of at a loss, but I could see some living worms from the first shipment wriggling around in my tote so was still hopeful that I would eventually have a culture from which I could harvest and feed my newts. I repeated the sifting to get any live worms from the second shipment and placed them and their medium in the same Rubbermaid tote and again hoped for the best. And I let everything sit for weeks with a minimum of disturbances, pretty much only just checking on them every other week to add a bit more food and look for living worms.
And the culture has bounced back! I am surprised with its productivity and how many worms it has produced. Every time I sift through the tote I disrupt dozens of worms, and that's just on the upper levels. My guess is that hundreds are in there, under the cardboard layers. They have been super easy and hardy critters.
Several weeks ago I decided to chop one up to feed to some baby newts. I noticed a smell when I cut and they seemed to emit a yellow liquid where injured. They also were really twitchy when disturbed. For these reasons I started to think that I must have actually gotten Eisenia fetida and not L. rubellus. After all that I just had plain nasty red wrigglers! I figured this must be why the culture had done so well, as red wrigglers are known for their ease of culture. But the baby newts ate them any way and have continued to do so. And last night I fed my whole caudate population with them, and with a few exceptions from about half the Taricha's, everybody ate them willingly and eagerly. Hurray! So either I really do have L. rubellus or my newts and salamanders are OK with red wrigglers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
After all that I am pleased with my purchase; Goliad did what they could to help me and they seemed to genuinely value me as a customer.The worms are a near perfect size for the majority of the species I keep and were overall well accepted. With that being said, I am not sure I can recommend them, however; the worms were a mess (twice!!) and the shipping is very high. I also am still not positive I actually got rubellus. I don't know enough about their identification/ behavior to be sure.
But if your heart is set on a (probable) L. rubellus culture, I know of no other sources so they may be your only bet. But use at your own risk and buyer beware,
HJ