for a while, i've kept them for 3 months or more

 

thats a long time. i was thinking more like a week or so.
i always just left them on the porch and the next day it was just gooo.

 

My Answer Is Till The Wife Throws Em Out......

 

Argee is right.
They will last till the wife throws them out.
I keep crawlers all year long, summer and winter, in a bucket with quality bedding.
You just need to keep them from overheating or freezing.
Crawlers have been known to live 20 years if the Robins are not to thick.
Feed them worm food and you will keep them all year long.

 

My Answer Is Till The Wife Throws Em Out......

LOL my wife was a pretty good sport, but leeches were the final straw. She bought me a little fridge for christmas and now makes me keep the bait in the garage.

 

for a while, i've kept them for 3 months or more

jb i CAN'T BELIEVE ANYTHING STAYS IN YOUR FRIDGE 3 MONTHS INCLUDING WORMS

 

celery, carrots and other assorted vegetables last much longer than worms.

 

they are still alive lol!

 

What do you use for each of these?

- Rumi

 

u can buy stuff or use sawdust and braed and leaf mixture

 

You can keep worms in the fridge through the winter as long as you don't keep them too cold and are willing to check them weekly for any dead ones, bugs and change the bedding when it gets too wet and contaminated from the worm's waste. Like waxworms, you can kill them by keeping them too cold.

 

So what is too cold?

 

wet newspaper a spoon ful of cornmeal every week or so they'll last til spring

 

But should I wait until maybe February to order?

 

So what is too cold?

They ca n handle down to 32 degrees(freezing kills em)! I think an optimum temp in a dedicated worm fridge would be somewhere in the mid 40s.

 

I'm just wondering if the fridge would protect them from freezing. If so, I could set it at 45 degrees.

 

pup, I'd order them ASAP ... first you'll want to have their new home ready for them so you can put them right in ... then it takes a while for them to get comfortable in their new surroundings, they won't start to breed for a few weeks or maybe longer, then it takes a while for them to grow up to be big enough to fit on a hook ... Canadian crawlers, the kind we all know and love for eyes', will take a while if they'll breed for you at all, most of the ones we buy at the bait shop are picked, not raised ... garden worms do better for breeding purposes, or try African Nightcrawlers or Alabama jumpers, they both reproduce well ... and be careful about mixing them, for some reason, usually keeping 1 type per bin is best ... if the fridge is somewhere it can freeze it might freeze pretty profound, huh ... but seriously, it will stop working once it's cold enough to not need to so they could ...

 

I'm trying a Frabill V worm habitat. I mixed Frabill bedding with composted cow manure from ACE. Added dozen worms yesterday. I'll monitor them and let you know. I already had 12 on top today. They looked bad so discarded them. The rest seem to have burrowed down. I'm keeping a log on how many I get rid of, plus workshop temp and fridge temp.

 

Any update on these I'm curious

 

You can keep worms for a very long time, just require some care, keep them in the fridge at a temp. Of 40° in a most not swampy wet and not dry bedding (peat moss, coconut fibers, topsoil) They are living and will need fed if your gonna keep them for a long time. Bedding will also need to be changed but the worms will tell you when it's time to change the bedding. If the worms come up to the surface it's time to change the bedding out. A little tender care and you can keep them for years. Seach worm farming, all kinds of information and different way's to keep them alive and the different food you can feed them

 

wet newspaper and I use to sprinkle a lil corn meal in there bout every week or so they last a loooong time

 

I checked the crawlers a couple weeks ago after some really cold weather and the ones I checked were still alive. Remember that I only have 2 dozen in the container and some of those were bad when I put them in and I removed them. I'm ready to try a larger quantity now.

 

As long as it doesn't freeze, they should be OK, you were right to remove any that stay on the surface of your storage container, those are usually dead or dying ... as has been mentioned, low 40s is a good temp up to maybe mid 50ish ... if you have an attached garage it will usually stay warm enough in winter but a detached building will be the same temperature as outside and they'll freeze ... when it's cold, into the 30s, they go into hibernate mode ... if they're in the ground outside, they burrow down enough to keep from freezing but your containers aren't that deep ... any garage is likely going to be to hot from May thru September ... I keep them in my basement in the low 60's and they're fine but leaving them on the porch when it's approaching 70, especially when exposed to the sun, they don't tolerate temps above that very well, you will have worm mush pretty quickly we've all been there, leaving the worm container out in the sun if you're adding paper try to shred it, have it damp but not soaking wet ... they will actually eat that but black ink only, no colored ink or gloss paper ... cornmeal is a good food ... there's a new article up in that section here on feeding them, lots of stuff they'll eat and some they won't, plus some info on plumping them up and keeping them happy ...