I know that it is said that the worm meds given to horses, don't affect the soil organisms, but[experts have been wrong a time or two] do you suppose manure could be a factor in your mystery die-off?

Anyway, please keep us posted. Though I don't have bins per se ... I do have a worm pit and the one 'string of pearls' worm that I found, totally freaked me out.

BTW ... have you checked out the redwormcomposting blog? The video about 'home made manure' might be helpful to you. My worms go crazy for my version of that recipe.

Here is a link that might be useful: RWC video home made manure

Well, I went through the bin and I think it was one of two things. Either the acid level was too high or they didn't like the newspaper. I'm thinking that worms raised in manure or coir might not have the necessary bacteria in their guts to handle the paper. I did let the bin sit a week before adding them but maybe it wasn't long enough. Also, I just sprinkled the manure on the top and not all the way through. Some of the worms looked very healthy and some looked on deaths door and some were, well dead. It was very sad to see the lumpy ones.

On the plus side, some of the cocoons that I save from the first patch did hatch. It was neat seeing baby worms. I have about 100 cocoons in there now that I saved from this bin or got from my compost pile. I think I was able to save around 200-300 worms. Around 20 were nice, healthy looking adults but most were pretty young. I'm going to put the sick and dieing ones in my compost pile in the yard like I did with the last bin I killed off.

I don't have any helpful advice but want to say that I sympathize. It is hard to see the little guys die off and not know what went wrong. Good luck to you.

Lime and rinse. It won't hurt, but it may help. :)

We are seeing a variety of possible causes with this string of pearls problem. Some are overfed and might have got too hot or anerobic, others like smalltowngal knows she did not overfeed. Some think their food/bedding was too acid while other people say they feed the same thing with no problem. And borderbarb found a single worm with the same symptoms.

It supports my thinking that the SOP appearance is what a dying worm looks like for whatever reason. People are noticing them because they are looking closer. I'm thinking another cause may be a viral/bacterial infection. If it is,there is nothing you can do, except let the surviving/healthy worms reproduce and hope they are resistant in the future. Think of it as a bin epidemic.

What we have in a bin situation is actually a very intensive population density. We try to maximize the population for our conditions so we get the highest production of VC. It is a matter of time before something disrupts the system.

I suspect cyclic problems happen more often than we guess. It's just it is not observed and sometimes not as big a percentage of worms die at once.

I am beginning to think it is not protein or acid but active fermentation and the production of alcohol. In fermentation sugar (which can be bread or rice or... ) is converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

"other people say they feed the same thing with no problem." Check. Experienced wormers have had this happen.

"People are noticing them because they are looking closer." Check. Conscientious wormers have this because they look closely.

"What we have in a bin situation is actually a very intensive population density." Check. Never heard it put that way but it is true. We are trying to surf the wave while in nature there are troughs and calm seas.

"I suspect cyclic problems happen more often than we guess. It's just it is not observed and sometimes not as big a percentage of worms die at once." Agreed.

Well, it's been a couple days since I moved them to the new bedding and things seem to be going better. I don't have a bunch of worms trying to escape and if I listen closely, I can hear the pop and crackling noise. I'll let you know in a couple weeks if they still seem happy but so far, so good.

"It's a mixture of dried leaves and cardboard."
What kind of leaves?
Do you know where the cardboard came from originally?
Whenever I p/u corrugated cardboard from the grocery store, I get them from the food section which I think is the safest.

The dried leaves and cardboard came from the place my hubby ordered the worm bin from. He purchased it from woodwormfarms.com He surprised me for my birthday since I was so upset about loosing my first batch to protein poisoning.