The rolled oats, cornmeal, and alfalfa work together to plump up your worms quickly. The finer this mix is powdered, the quicker your worms will eat it up and fatten up. Moisten your worm bedding and then sprinkle it over the bedding surface.
If your worm bin becomes too wet, it can become anaerobic (meaning no oxygen) with rotting food and produce a foul odour. Worms will naturally aerate the compost. If your worms are becoming pale in color, or are skinny rather than nice and fat and healthy, your worm farm moisture levels are probably too high.
As conditions in a worm bed become drier, it is inevitable that the worms are going to lose moisture as well – thus causing them to shrink in size. If your worms are in open outdoor beds in a hot environment, this could certainly be a significant factor.
Parasitic Worms
There are several types of worms that infect and feed on people. Some worms that people get can grow to be really big --more than 3 feet long. Others are tiny. The worst parasitic worms are usually found in warm tropical or subtropical parts of the world, but some worms are common in other places, too.
Earthworms are also able to use this food source. Earthworms consume coffee grounds and deposit them deep in soil. This may account for noted improvements in soil structure such as increased aggregation.
Over-Feeding Causes Odors
The worms' job is to eat the food before it gets super-rotten and stinky. If you add too much food at a time, they cannot keep up. Too much food can also push the air out of the bin, leading to foul-smelling anaerobic decomposition.
Banana peels are an excellent worm food.
Eggs that have been swallowed will hatch inside the intestine. After 2 weeks, the worms reach adult size and begin to reproduce, starting the cycle again.
Young worms grow rapidly and are ready to reproduce in about one month. Depending on growing conditions, worms may take up to six months to attain full size. An actively growing worm bed will yield 4-5 pounds of worms per square foot of bed space per year.
Worms hate: meat or fish, cheese, butter, greasy food, animal waste, spicy and salty foods, citrus.” The food-to-worm ratio is not precise, nor is the amount of castings they will produce. The rule of thumb is that a pound of worms will eat one to two pounds of food in a week.
Mould is not directly harmful to the worms.
In fact the worms need the mould to break down the food waste. The worms then eat the mould itself and the smaller pieces of food matter. Without mould you will still have the piece of bread lying in the bin for quite a while, and your worms will not be able to process that!
They can cover a lot more ground on the surface. The problem is, earthworms need to stay moist. Most of the time, they would dehydrate if they were above ground. But when it rains, the surface is moist enough for worms to survive and remain hydrated.
Once every week, pour about five litres of fresh water into the Top Working Tray, which will flood down through the lower trays, ensuring the entire worm farm remains very moist. The sudden 'flood' will not harm the worms. Adding water is especially important in the hotter months of the year.
Water makes up more than 75% of the earthworm's body weight, so moist soils are preferred to prevent dehydration. Earthworms acclimate quickly by moving to humid sites or by entering a resting state.
The worms won't overpopulate their confines, so you don't have to worry about having too many.
Worm-like invertebrates have a lifespan that varies according to species. For instance, earthworms such as the Red wiggler worms live between 4-5 years. On the other hand, Riftia pachyptila, also known as the giant tube worm can live for 300 years in the depths of the oceans.
When worms die in the bin, their bodies decompose and are recycled by other worms, along with the food scraps. Worm castings are toxic to live worms. After all the food scraps in a bin are recycled, the worms will eat their own castings which will poison them.
There is no need to stir up any composting worm bin IF you have proper drainage and holes in the bottom and sides of the worm bin. composting worms do a great job on their own of stirring up the compost this allows for the autonomous drainage/aeration of the contents in the bin.