packaging for bait worms?

[muttabuttasaurus]

My worm farm is really cranking and as financial reality has forced me to take a job that I really don't want, pumping petrol into pleasure boats at the nearby lake I thought I might as well see if I can supply the store I will be working at with some worms to sell for bait. They currently buy them from the local bait shop and with their captive market mark up the price 100% so that 10 worms sell for $4.50!!! Which seems awfully high to me... I'm sure I can undercut that source and still make a little bit of spending money. They are packaged in these little styrofoam boxes and the worms are in their fairly beautifully finished castings. It breaks my heart to see the fisherman throw the boxes full of black gold into the bins and I have been known to go into the bin after them! The main reason that I keep worms is for their castings so I am loathe to put the castings in whatever packaging I come up with.
I know I would do well to look up sites specific to worm farming for this sort of info but I thought I would first ask you permies to see if you have seen or can think of any solutions to my problem. Ideally I'd like to come up with some kind of free, biodegradeable packaging, and bedding that won't produce any kind of odour as the worms wait to go on the hook. I have thought about damp shredded paper, although here in the desert the paper may well dry out before the worms are sold which would equal dead worms and unsatisfied customers. Any ideas?
Also, does anyone know of a simple way to calculate the rates at which you can harvest the worms without putting a dent in their population? I know all this info is probably out there and I am just too lazy to go look, but I am curious to see what responses I get here.

[Jemes]

Packaging?

Depends on the expected duration of enclosure, transportation etc. If you were handing the worms directly to the fishermen etc. I would suggest these ideas. Weight them directly into a container the fishermen already carried (baitdish etc.). Banana leaves. Here in Thailand, they make wonderful packages out of banana leaves and toothpicks. A nice little pyramid shape which would hold worms securely would work

Slightly longer duration packaging may be a high rag content paper/cardboard which readily breaks down. The worms only need to be moist not damp or wet. You might try experimenting and making your own heavy paper. Here they also make a heavy parchment type paper out of 100% elephant dung. I can't see why a similar paper might not work with cattle dung or the like. And ofcourse there are plenty of high fibre plants in Australia for paper making. Could become a business trademark item for you.

Bedding material? Rehydrated cocopeat? Sphagnum moss/peat as sold for nursery industry holds moisture for a long period.

Some suggestions anyway. Good luck

[muttabuttasaurus]

Thanks Jemes, there's some nice ideas there. I actually live in New Mexico, on the Rio Grande but most definitely in the Chihuahan desert, so much to the dismay of my aching heart there is not a banana leaf one to be had around these parts. Similarly no cocopeat or even real peat (not that I'd use it anyway being as though the peat bogs are a beautiful, breathing and disappearing thing), at least not for free. God help me, I am a cheap son of a gun. Unfortunately I will have lots of other crap things to do while I am at the lake, and will have to consign my wares to the fridge and let the shop assistant do the selling, as much as I would probably enjoy counting out the worms. We sell little bait fish that way and the person in the shop has to catch them out of the net by hand and count them out into the customers bucket. My worm farming operation isn't huge, so it will be pretty small scale. Your post made me think that egg cartons might be a go... Still don't know what I'll do for bedding though. Maybe coffee grounds? No, they'd start to mold and decompose pretty quick wouldn't they? Heck.
Anyway, thanks.

[Mont]

Got any sand in that there desert? Could that work for bedding?

[muttabuttasaurus]

More sand than you could wiggle a worm at here, pardner! But would it make good bedding? Seems like it would dry out and they would die. Thanks for the suggestion though. I guess sand could be a filler component if I end up finding a cheap/free source of somthing more valuable...

[Mont]

Oh well. I think I thought of sand because whenever I've bought worms they're encrusted in damp sea sand in their plastic bags. If you had watertight containers you could do a sludgey mix of sand and water - obviously the sand doesn't trap the water at all.

[muttabuttasaurus]

found out that my little red wrigglers aren't as desirable to fisherpeople as the more demanding giant canadian nightcrawlers. they do use red wrigglers for trout apparently, but at the lake where I work it is all bigger fish... oh well. i guess i'll just set the excess population out to free range in the sheet mulch. :D