I think they would work just fine (although I have not done it). I read a lot about other people who have though. I'd take one intact bucket and two or three additional buckets with holes drilled in the bottom to slide inside (be sure to keep the top bucket lidded, but with some ventilation). You'd have to monitor the liquid accumulating in the bottom bucket. People here use large rubbermaid tubs nested in the same way. BTW, I grew up just northwest of you and I raised worms and night crawlers for much of my childhood. I'd collect them when they emerged for mating during the spring rains and kept them in an old refrigerator I buried in the ground on it's back. I kept them in a bit of soil with lots of maple leaves and fed them ground corn and chicken feed. I sold them by the 1000 to local bait stores, which we kept supplied for most of the year. It was a great source of income for a poor kid.
