Featured Customer Question – Travis P.
I had ordered some worms from xxxxx before finding your site.
After about 2-3 weeks they have almost all died off. I have a worm factory
in my kitchen pantry and followed the directions, I believe. I have had
about 10-15 escape, but most have just disappeared. The few I have remaining
look very sluggish and sick. I had tried adding moisture, adding dry
shredded newspaper in case it was too wet. I had added crushed egg shells, a
bit of sand for grit, plenty of food (too much??). I was feeding them
blended apples, lettuce, banana peels, onions (on one occasion), carrots,
etc. Any ideas? I want to order a pound from you now, but am afraid I am
doing something wrong in my composter and need to figure that out first
before spending more $ on worms. I should mention that I didn’t have any
composted soil to begin with, so I added a handful of potting soil. I only
have a few fruit flies in my bin, otherwise it’s pretty bug free.
Thanks,
Travis
Hi Travis,
Your experience is due to classic overfeeding.
Worms live in bedding, and eat food. You cannot have too much bedding…the
worms love it, and it is your barrier so the flying bugs do not swarm the rotting
vegetation. If they can smell it, they will swarm it. Food goes in the corner on the bottom only.
A pound of worms is about the size of my fist. That is the amount you
should be feeding your pound or worms, especially if you are using a plastic bin.
Excess vegetation (especially throughout the bedding), turns into vinegar.
Vinegar is an acid. Give your worms an acid bath…worms disappear (die). Bury the scraps in a corner and the worms can either come to the scraps, or not. Either way you don’t lose your worms. Even if the food turns nasty, the microbes will break it down into water over time.
I use the analogy…I like Ragu, but I don’t want to live in Ragu. No
different for the worms.
Tags: Overfeeding worms