Re: 1,000 worms on their way....

**llama momma** 4/7/2015, 10:17 pm

Ok good. That site is terrific.

**sanderson** 4/8/2015, 4:06 am

Nan, I checked Craig's List to see if there are any little red wigglers for sale on the islands. Yes, there are! If the bottoms of the boxes have weed fabric, you may or may not have any larger ground worms in the boxes. All of my boxes are raised and I have worm tubes to feed the red wigglers I bought. Their populations have really grown this past year, to the point I can see areas of worm castings. If you decide to buy some locally, the seller may have instructions on what to feed them. I give them kitchen scraps, coffee, and occasionally horse poo.

**Kelejan** 5/11/2015, 1:51 pm

Kelejan wrote:LLM. I expect you know of Redworm Composting's little competition of "Two Worms".
It consists of a small container housing two worms that have not reached maturity. The idea is to see how many worms one has at the end of certain time stages.

It could take months or up to a year. I have set up my container with two tiny worms, they should grow to maturity and then start producing. I have measured the bedding, the food, the water and the temperature. Now it is a question waiting to see how they do. Taking note of food added and any other interesting thing we can think of.

Bentley will get this mass of information from us all, and then, I hope, come to some interesting conclusions.

I use metric measurements, simply because I can measure so much easier with them and I do have a tiny weigh-scale that measures in grams. In Canada we are a little more used to using metric, although I still think in imperial. I have no idea how tall I am in metric, not how heavy. Still think in pounds and ounces etc.

An update on my two-worm experiment courtesy of redwormcomposting.com.

I had a look just now and my two original worms are surviving but seem to have diminished in length from their longest of 4" and 3 3/4" but are still lively and have their clitellum.

Between them they have produced 25 baby worms that now range in size from 1/4" to nearly two inches. If the parents do not produce any more then that generation has averaged 12 to 13 per parent. I started this on January 15, 2015.

Now to wait until this current generation reaches puberty, so according to my figures they should produce just over three hundred offspring in about five months time. I did not see any eggs but I think I missed that time frame.

**sanderson** 5/11/2015, 3:34 pm

Kelejan, This is an interesting experiment. If they have 25 babies to raise, they earned the right to be a little worn. Very Happy

I have a general red wiggler question for anyone on the Forum. Is it possible to have too many of them in a box, converting the homemade compost and food scraps into worm castings? The soil seems a little heavy in the 4 boxes with worm tubes. I thought stockpiling ready compost over the winter on the boxes would help moderate the winter temps for them.

**llama momma** 5/11/2015, 5:37 pm

I have read over and over again that redworms will self regulate their numbers. What I find funny is how do they keep track since they are blind? That's ok, I don't have to understand how they do it, Lol.

**Kelejan** 5/11/2015, 8:43 pm

llama momma wrote:I have read over and over again that redworms will self regulate their numbers. What I find funny is how do they keep track since they are blind? That's ok, I don't have to understand how they do it, Lol.

I don't think we have to understand the process, LLM, we just have to know that it happens.

sanderson, I feel that as the castings increase there is less food and air available so the worm production decreases to balance it.

The removal of castings, addition of food and bedding and some moisture, they are ready to go once more.

A .least they are not like those rat experiments where they start fighting and eating each other.

**sanderson** 5/12/2015, 12:05 am

Hi, The castings in the tube are not the problem. I can remove those as needed. It's the castings in the beds that are building up.

**Kelejan** 5/12/2015, 12:29 pm

sanderson wrote:Hi, The castings in the tube are not the problem. I can remove those as needed. It's the castings in the beds that are building up.

I must admit I never thought that the castings in the beds would be too much.
In that case, remove the worm tubes and do not feed the worms?
Perhaps dig over the beds and remove some of the worms?

**sanderson** 5/12/2015, 12:46 pm

That's what I fear I may have to do. I have 2 beds, maybe 3, that are large enough in which to put the 3" tubes. I'm already burying little pockets of food in those beds. Very Happy

**Kelejan** 5/12/2015, 2:19 pm

I suppose one can be too successful, sanderson Very Happy

**Kelejan** 7/25/2015, 9:47 pm

Kelejan wrote:
Kelejan wrote:LLM. I expect you know of Redworm Composting's little competition of "Two Worms".
It consists of a small container housing two worms that have not reached maturity. The idea is to see how many worms one has at the end of certain time stages.

It could take months or up to a year. I have set up my container with two tiny worms, they should grow to maturity and then start producing. I have measured the bedding, the food, the water and the temperature. Now it is a question waiting to see how they do. Taking note of food added and any other interesting thing we can think of.

Bentley will get this mass of information from us all, and then, I hope, come to some interesting conclusions.

I use metric measurements, simply because I can measure so much easier with them and I do have a tiny weigh-scale that measures in grams. In Canada we are a little more used to using metric, although I still think in imperial. I have no idea how tall I am in metric, not how heavy. Still think in pounds and ounces etc.

An update on my two-worm experiment courtesy of redwormcomposting.com.

I had a look just now and my two original worms are surviving but seem to have diminished in length from their longest of 4" and 3 3/4" but are still lively and have their clitellum.

Between them they have produced 25 baby worms that now range in size from 1/4" to nearly two inches. If the parents do not produce any more then that generation has averaged 12 to 13 per parent. I started this on January 15, 2015.

Now to wait until this current generation reaches puberty, so according to my figures they should produce just over three hundred offspring in about five months time. I did not see any eggs but I think I missed that time frame.

Today's update of my rather neglected experiment.

No parent alive. RIP. A total count of 68 worms, most ranging from 1/4" to about an inch with a few reaching two inches.
I do not think the babies from the last (25) have grown much in size but the increase to 68 are the ones that arrived since then. I have not seen a single egg, and I do know what they look like. So far none of the original young have reached puberty but now with more food and moisture they should soon reach that stage. I expect that as they had little food and moisture they just stay almost the same size. That is why I feel that worms self-regulate themselves to match the conditions. They are just surviving.

I harvested about 5oz of castings and these castings have been transferred to a second container, added bedding, food and moisture and wait to see how many tiny worms there were that were too small for me to handle.

**sanderson** 7/26/2015, 3:26 am

Kelejan, Thank you for the update. I wonder how long they live. Maybe the 2 had reached their natural life span??

**Kelejan** 7/26/2015, 8:00 pm

sanderson wrote:Kelejan, Thank you for the update. I wonder how long they live. Maybe the 2 had reached their natural life span??

January 15 The future parents were very small.
March 15    The future parents were mature
May 11       The parents were shrinking but between them had 25 offspring.
mid-June    One parent found.
July 24       No sign of that one parent, but at least 68 offspring.

Conclusion. My worms lived about five to six months.

**sanderson** 8/20/2016, 3:35 pm

Something got into the free-range red wiggler worm box, again! First time it burrowed under the box from the outside. I filled in the hole and nothing for a few days. Found a juvenile opossum and it was dispatched. This time, what ever it is, came in through the tulle on top. I left the lid ajar too much and it got through the tulle. All those fruit pits outside the box? The black soldier flies stripped the flesh off and I picked them out of the box. Okay, just looked up what they eat and it looks like worms are on the menu. Sad

I'l put 1/4" meshing on the bottom, which will allow the worms to move to their comfortable zones summer and winter.
1,000 worms on their way.... - Page 23 Worm_b11

1,000 worms on their way.... - Page 23 Worm_b11

1,000 worms on their way.... - Page 23 Worm_b10

1,000 worms on their way.... - Page 23 Worm_b12

**sanderson** 9/17/2016, 2:25 am

I just had a horrible thought! I have red wiggler tubes in my beds. I've been adding HM compost and bagged manure compost as usual. But I have also been adding kelp meal, crab meal, nonfat dried milk, blood meal and bone meal. Will any of these kill the worms??

**Kelejan** 9/18/2016, 1:08 am

I reckon many of your worms will survive. It's a done deal, you cannot undo it. Very Happy

Keep us up to date, sanderson.

**sanderson** 9/18/2016, 3:02 am

I will

Cajun Cappy 9/18/2016, 4:16 am

I guess most of yall figured out by now we are real primitive with our gardening. We do not have a compost pile too technical we have a garbage heap. We do not have a worm bed the yard and garbage heap have big night crawlers in it and they congregate in the garbage pile, After thinking a while this is all I got showing worms.

**trolleydriver** 9/18/2016, 3:58 pm

Cappy ... great video. But you scared me at about the 1:24 point when you said you had the "ace in the hole" and the camera panned down to the cat. I thought, "Oh no, don't tell me he is going to use the cat to go fishing for catfish!".

Just kidding of course. By the way, I think you should have your own reality TV show. If a family of duck call makers can have their own show then why not Cappy? Very Happy

plantoid 9/18/2016, 4:11 pm

Thanks Cappy I'd always wondered what you cousins over the pond were calling night crawlers ... Now I know .

On this side we call your night crawlers common garden worms , we also have a bigger version up to 1/3 of an inch across and nine or more inches long ... We call them " Lob Worms they are that big they even frighten the fish Laughing

I took the lid of my composting bin this afternoon when it was nicely warm and sunny , on the surface of the contents was an amazing half inch thick layer of recently hatch striped " brandling " worms. All giving it what for to escape the day light .. I've never ever seen so many in one place.

They have reproduced tremendously on the stripped out uncooked , unheated skins from off 30 pound of tomatoes I prepped & canned earlier in August .

**Kelejan** 9/18/2016, 8:48 pm

Last year I found an enormous worm that must have been half an inch thick and twelve inches long. I can handle red wigglers with no problem, but I could not force myself to touch this worm. Shocked

Cappy, I clicked on the advert in your video, does that mean you get yourself a penny or a cent for the advert? I thought I read something on your blog when I checked in the other day.

Cajun Cappy 9/20/2016, 11:57 am

Thanks kelejan, yes clicking on an ad pays us a penny or 2 and when some one clicks in the add as much as 10 cents its how blogs make money. Some folks actually make a living at it but we make a few cents a week. It's exciting to us to see the pennies add up, and we always say a prayer of blessing when they do. It's kind of like leaving a tip cause we love and appreciate it very much. Please know a prayer will be sent up and a blessing for you when we check. Thanks to google most of the adds should be interesting anyway. Smile

Cajun Cappy 9/20/2016, 12:00 pm

What we call night crawlers are big red worms with a white band around their necks

**trolleydriver** 9/20/2016, 12:26 pm

Cajun Cappy wrote:What we call night crawlers are big red worms with a white band around their necks

I believe they are what we call "dew worms" because they come to the surface when there is a heavy dew on the ground. As a boy I used to water our lawn then go out out with a flashlight and catch the dew worms that came to the surface. Great for fishing the next day.

**Kelejan** 9/20/2016, 4:25 pm

Cajun Cappy wrote:Thanks kelejan, yes clicking on an ad pays us a penny or 2 and when some one clicks in the add as much as 10 cents its how blogs make money. Some folks actually make a living at it but we make a few cents a week. It's exciting to us to see the pennies add up, and we always say a prayer of blessing when they do. It's kind of like leaving a tip cause we love and appreciate it very much. Please know a prayer will be sent up and a blessing for you when we check. Thanks to google most of the adds should be interesting anyway.

Thanks for affirming what I thought, Cappy, and thanks for the blessing. I will now know that clicking on an ad helps pay for the blog so I will do it more often when I read someone's blog. Do you know who does the clicking or is it anonymous?

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