Being Alabama Jumpers have a rugged exterior skin which permits them to burrow through the hardest packed clay soil as well as sandy soil enables durability when on the fishing hook. Being these worms can litterally jump out of your hands should give you the picture of just how active they will wiggle on your fishing hook.
Alabama Jumpers have been recorded living as far north as Chattanooga, TN while oriniating from the tropics, making them a great choice for warm water fishing. Being these worms are tropical by nature, they become sluggish if the internal temperature of your compost pile or worm bin falls to about fifty five degrees.
Raising Alabama Jumpers in a compost pile begins with carbon based or brown products such as hay, leaves, shredded newspaper and cardboard. Refrain from using straw, acidic leaves such as oak, pine needles... As this decomposes it will generate some warmth for your worms to assist in keeping them warm.
Contrary to beliefs, Alabama Jumpers thrive well when fed vegetable scraps too, heeding caution to heating up the entire pile at once. In order to prevent over heating, place your food scraps in one corner of the pile and proceed to the next corner after a while. Repeat so as to allow enough time for the origial corner to cool down and be devoured.
To raise Alabama Jumpers for fishing inside in a worm bin is a bit different. There are two types of bedding materials which I have used successfully, each requiring holes in both top and bottom of the worm bin for oxygen to penetrate.
The first way is to use partially decomposed hardwood shavings and sawdust. There are many woods for as many reasons to avoid, such as oak, pine and cedar to name a few. The bedding material should have a depth should be about one foot. Add about one half cup of sand per five gallons of bedding material. Again you may add vegetable scraps the same way you would raise red wigglers, by placing in one corner at a time and covering it up with some damp shredded newspaper or cardboard to avoid odors coming from the worm bin.
The other bedding material which is actually easier to obtain as well as comes ready to use is Michigan Black peat Moss. Do not use Sphagnum Peat Moss as it is not as decomposed as the black peat hence retains moisture differently and will cause you to lose your worms.
Here you will want to fill your worm bin with about one foot of Michigan black peat. Do not add food scraps to this system as I will explain in a bit. Usually the black peat comes at the right moisture level and is presoaked so there is no need to work it any further. Normally when raising worms, one would become concerned when the bedding material becomes compacted however this is actually a favorable condition for the Alabama Jumpers. Remember these worms do well in hard packed clay and seem to appreciate the hard packed bedding material.
As for feed, vegetable scraps will sour this mix too easily. The best food to use is Purina Worm Chow fed daily to your worms. The Worm Chow also makes an excellent supplement to feeding your worms whether in an outside compost pile or raising them in a worm bin.
Under the right conditions, do not be surprised to see little worms hatching within two weeks or so. Alabama Jumpers also grow rapidly and can grow from an 1/8 of an inch up to two inches long within a matter of a month or so.
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