The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Baskey wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:47 pm Gentlemen this is a good tip. Once you've gathered your lobworms, keep them in dampened shredded newspaper somewhere nice and cool and dark. Feed with plenty of crushed weatabix. The fattest lobs you've ever seen and the fish love em

Damp weetabix or dry?

Snape wrote: ↑Sat Oct 13, 2018 10:02 am

Baskey wrote: ↑Mon Sep 17, 2018 8:47 pm Gentlemen this is a good tip. Once you've gathered your lobworms, keep them in dampened shredded newspaper somewhere nice and cool and dark. Feed with plenty of crushed weatabix. The fattest lobs you've ever seen and the fish love em

Damp weetabix or dry?

Milk and sugar?

The best wormery I ever had was just a hole in the ground about 8 ft by 3 ft by 2½ft deep in SHADE behind my garage. It was NOT lined but was covered with damp sacking.
As other members say the brandling came on their own but I stocked it regularly with lobs from the local cricket pitch.(I was a lot younger then!).
Because I fed it frequently, with kitchen vegetable waste, shredded newspaper, garden waste, etc. the worms just stayed! I assume the feed was good enough for them not to wander away. It was turned fairly frequently with a garden fork.

I do not have such an ideal place where I now live so I keep my lobs in a small plastic dustbin sunk fully into the ground in a shady place. It has small drainage holes near the bottom. I feed them with coffee grounds, ripped open tea bags, and lettuce, although I like the idea of the Weetabix.
For brandlings I just go to my compost 'boxes'. I have four in a row, each about one cubic metre covered with old carpets. I get most from the box in which the compost is only partly rotted.

Hope this helps.

[quote= Do the required species just turn up or is it best to 'seed' the wormery once it has sufficient material? I too have collected a few lobs after dark in my time but it's not so easy these days!

I seeded mine with a tub of red worms from the tackle shop as i had caught fish on them before. .......

In the areas where I have lived over the years the Brandlings just appear on their own and breed pretty fast. If I remember my school biology correctly Brandlings breed about once a month,(in warm weather I assume). On the other hand Lobworms breed only twice a year (I think).

Hence your wormery will not be able to breed enough Lobs to meet your demands unless it is VERY large, such as the one which used to be under the Lion house at London Zoo to provide lobs by the dozen to feed the Duck Billed Platypus(es). Hence regard your wormery as storage place for lobs which you collect from lawns at night or (if you are rich) buy them.

I am hazy about the biology and breeding of Dendrobenas, but I THINK they can breed in the wormery.

This year, I have used one of the little bins used for food waste for the refuse collections. I quarter filled it with a mix of soil, paper and light veggie scraps occasionally. When I dig the garden or have gone out on a wet lawn of a night I put the worms in the bin, so a mixture of all sorts I suppose. I turn it over every now and again and take out what I need when I go fishing. I have not kept it through the winter yet so will probably put it in a shed. So far I have not had water sitting in the bottom and the worms seem very lively when I have taken them out.