The Diary of a wiggly worm.

February 1st
I was turning the compost pile when I turned up two adult worms (Eisenia Foetida) mating.
I placed them in a container with some damp white tissue paper.

February 2nd
I checked them, and in between the
layers of the damp tissue paper was a cocoon. I took damp white tissue
paper and placed the cocoon in the middle of the layers of tissue paper
and placed it in its own container and numbered it #1. The two adult
worms appeared to be doing fine. I noticed that the damp tissue paper
looked to have some tiny rolled up pieces of tissue spread about the
container, I'm sure the worms have been working on eating the tissue so I
added some chopped up lettuce for some food for the two adult worms. I
added a few water drops to make sure everything remains damp.

I checked them each day between February 3rd through February 7th with no noticeable difference.


February 8th
I found one of the adult worms in the
middle layer of white damp tissue. All signs of shredded lettuce was
gone, so I added some more lettuce and a little piece of molded bread.

February 9th
While checking the layers of damp
tissue paper I found a second cocoon, I removed the new cocoon and
placed it in white damp tissue paper in a different container and
numbered it # 2.

February 23rd
I have checked
the two adult worms and each cocoon everyday from Feb 10th -23rd. Both
adult worms seem to be doing fine. I check the layers of white tissue
paper for any new cocoons. There is still more of what appears to be
small rolled up pieces of tissue, and some darker specks that I believe
to be worm castings. I added more damp bread and some more damp white
tissue paper. When checking the cocoons I have noticed that the cocoon
#1 is getting much darker, and has taken on a more rounded shape than
cocoon #2.



February 24th
I checked the cocoon # 1 today and there is 6 new baby worms!



They emerged from the cocoon exactly 23 days after the cocoon was made. The
babies are all about 1/4 inch long and are the size of a thread.
Baby worms can start eating as soon as they are out of the cocoon. I added a
small amount of damp molded bread for food.

When I checked the adult worms today they appeared to be fine.
When I checked the damp tissue paper I found a new cocoon.
I placed it in damp tissue paper and put it in a container numbered #3.

February 27th
I have checked the adult worms and each cocoon everyday from February 23rd to February 27th. I have found a new cocoon today Feb. 27th. I placed it in damp white tissue paper and placed it in a container numbered #4.
The baby worms in container #1 are hard to find, but I was able to find 3 of the 6 in the molded food. I am sure they are all in the molded food. There was no noticeable difference in their size.

The two adult worms appear to be doing fine. I added a few drops of water and more damp white tissue paper.

February 29th
I have checked the worms and the
cocoons each day from February 27th - February 28th.
The worms seem to be doing fine. I found 4 of the 6 baby worms from cocoon # 1 eating the moldy food. They were hard to find so I am sure the others may be
there as well and I am just not seeing them. The 4 that I found are
growing and they measured to be about 3/4 of an inch now.



March 1st
When checking the adult worms I found a new cocoon, I placed it in damp white tissue paper and numbered it #5.

wow this is way too cool. Thanks for sharing

How fun is this? Josh that is so interesting. Internet sites say a cocoon contains 4-6 youngins and sure enough you just proved it and with pictures. Great Job!

This is what I come up with...

llama momma has 1000 worms

Dived that by 2 worms to mate=500

500 make 5 cocoons a month=2,500 cocoons

2,500 cocoons hatch 6 worms=15,000 baby worms

puts a whole new meaning to the word momma!

I'm gonna need more bins!

As usual, Josh...terrific information and visuals!!!

Josh wrote:This is what I come up with...

llama momma has 1000 worms

Dived that by 2 worms to mate=500

500 make 5 cocoons a month=2,500 cocoons

2,500 cocoons hatch 6 worms=15,000 baby worms

puts a whole new meaning to the word momma!

Nature usually makes more females than males so even though a worm is a hermophrodite there will most likely be more egg layers by about 6 to 4 .5 .

If you work the numbers and compound them every 35 to 40 days or so just like rabbit or rat production they would end up weighing more than the worlds weight in a couple of years so there must be a massive mortality rate as well .

One of the professional USA worm farming websites gave a likely output of viable worms for their farm per 1000 , it was much more than you would expect as each year it ran into a couple of tons of worms for the farm but as I have memory probs I can't quite recall which site it is.

josh i cant wait to share this thread with the kids!

they are making worm hotels tonight!

our youngest son and our grand daughter love looking for worms out in our back yard and they put them into the SFG they get so excited to find them....right now they have been looking in our back yard (in ground garden) that is full of worms.....they learned last year how helpful worms are to the garden so they have been collecting them since last spring and place them into our SFG and their self watering containers....

so tonight we decided to give them a proper place to stay in our SFG with room service

hugs

rose

This is so cool they are prolific little devils. i think I may have to get a worm composting bin to move my worms.

Some one posted if I left them in TT box this summer they would be roasted.

I'm paraphasing

Nice work J