Wild Worms?

[IanF]

I've been having abit of an argument with some people on another forum. Basically it's about the idea that earthworms need to be bought captive bred otherwise they'll transfer disease and kill your animal. Correct me if I'm wrong but plenty of people on here get them as long as it's far from chemicals and fertilisers, and they do just fine right?

 

[Kaysie]

As far as I know, most shops sell wildcaught worms. Bait shops, walmart, etc., they all mass-collect their worms. I've never had a problem with wild worms, either collected myself or bought at walmart or the pet store.

Figure, in the wild, sals don't eat captive bred worms.

 

[peterj]

I've never noticed a problem with wild worms that I've fed to axolotls and fish. I farm worms now because I wanted a regular supply but I would have thought a worm farm has more bacterial and fungal activity than most soils.

 

[benw]

I dig up all my worms for my collection of Salamandra, and i know where i get them from is chemical free, (no pesticides used) so i know i can give them to my sals. When i dig them up i am talking 100's!!

That is the only thing i would worry about, other than that worms are one of, it not the best food, as they are nutritionally balanced.

Ben

 

[pesco]

Simple logic - to transfer a disease the disease must exist at the source, and for disease to exist at the source there must be some amphibians around. In practice there must be a lot of amphibians around. I'm sure its not the case unless you live in some amphibians den

Im feeding worms to fish and amphibians for more than 20 years and never got any disease from this source. In the summer time I usually collect them. Wet towel or piece of old rug on ground covered with leaves makes perfect gathering spot for them. I found its easier and less time consuming to do that instead of culturing them, so my culture boxes go to shadowed spot and I look into them once in 1-2 weeks just to feed them. When temperature outside drops below around 10 degrees C I am switching moving culture boxes to the cellar and start feeding worms daily - in a matter of 2-4 weeks they are booming again

I never drop or bury dead animals in the garden - if happen that some animal dies, even if it was killed by other animal it goeas strait to the toiled sink - especially with new arrivals you never 100% sure if they carry some dormant disease or not, so its better to keep the dead ones as far as possible.

I'm sure that worms from this 2 sources are totally disease free.