About a month ago, someone gave me a batch of rabbit manure from their cage. Since I was still tossing food scraps because the worms weren't eating that much, I never got around to using it. It's been sitting in a large, closed plastic container. It's partly moldy, the poo is still moist but there's no ammonia smell.

I've read that you can add rabbit poo direct to a worm bin without pre-composting, so yesterday I took 6 worms (as an experiment) and put them into the container with the manure. I didn't add any more moisture as I was afraid that the poo might heat up and it seemed already moist enough. When I went to check on it this morning, all the worms were dead, and all with the same symptoms; at each end they looked ok, but at one or more points in between, it looked like someone had tied a string around them and pulled tight. (at that point it was shrunk down to nothing). If I had a compost pile, I would throw it in there, but I don't. I won't use it if there's a chance it'll kill off my herd.

Any thoughts??

Shaul