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Showing results for tags 'Lobworms'.
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I know this topic has likely been covered before, but I still can't seem to find anything like a definitive answer; I'm hoping that the collective knowledge and experience on here can come up with something workable and reliable! Simply - what is the best way to keep lobworms? I'm not trying to keep them for months on end - I'd happily settle for a few weeks! Unfortunately, there was a catalyst (this afternoon) for this post. Over the past week or so we've had several evenings where there was rain, then on-going dampness and warm muggy weather through the night - lobbies were out all over the place, and our house backs onto a small park, so collection was dead easy - I had maybe 300 or so large lobworms split between 5, 3-pint maggot boxes. Boxes contained a small amount of soil and a pad of newspaper, dampened well with rainwater - the boxes themselves are the Greys ones with the klip-lock lids that allow ventilation, and they'd all been kept in an outbuilding, so they were cool and to a large dgree kept in darkness. They've been checked over every day or so and all was OK apart from the removal of an occasional casualty, usually the morning after a new collection. Last checked on Wednesday night, they were OK; checked this morning prior to nipping out for an overnighter tonight and 90% of them were dead No reason at all I can pin down; temperatures have been OK, not apparently too dry / moist, low light levels etc. Boxes were clean / steralised before use; no dead worms left in there to cause problems etc, no overcrowding - I'm scratching my head for the cause, as the fatalities were spread across all boxes ... I'd split them over several boxes to avaoid any overcrowding and also to try and contain any potential problem with some of them dying, reasoning that if one box had a problem, the others would be OK. Anyways, going back to the original question, does anybody have any sort of workable, reliable method for keeping / storing lobworms? I'm happy with something that will work for maybe a few weeks rather than long-term storage, and using a fridge is out, as there are usually maggots in there, and the ammonia given off by them would kills the lobbies PDQ! As an afterthought - I put what was left out for the birds who seemed very happy ... does anyone have any sort of an opinion about whether they may still have had any use as a bait, either as they were (dead but not yet decaying or stinky), or maybe frozen / liquidised at a later date to spice up groundbait maybe?