A brief note for those who may be starting out small and wanting to increase their herd....this sure ramped up my population in a hurry.

Last year, I collected spend brew grains from some homebrewers and a microbrewery to feed the little guys. They seemed to like it alright, but the stuff was way too wet. Never figured out a way to dry it fast enough to keep it from stinking.
Where do you get your chick feed from? Do you get small bags? .49 a pound seems a little spendy. My ducklings are going through chick feed like mad right now and I get 50 lb bags for about $12-15 for starter/grower. Finisher feed is cheaper still.

The Worm Chow by Purina (Mizuri) has about the same contents at the same amounts as the Chick Starter, and does a great job, but is costly, $25/60 lbs vs $13 for 2-40 lb bags. Feeding the grains full time is what the fishing worm and reptile feeder suppliers use but as BlueButterfly323 said, it's great for a bin pick-me-up, spring 'Tonic, or when you're recovering a population or starting a new pile.
Also, if you can find some grain (corn/barley/etc) that has spilled from a silo/grain truck/rail car, that has started to sprout or go bad, the worms love it and you're getting it before any treatment the grains might go thru

Wow! Buying food for worms! That puts a whole new image of vermicomposting in my head.

My wife drinking bottled water freaks me out, but THIS!

CarlosDanger

That's one thing I have never tried, chicken mash. We have chickens so no probs there, but wondering do you soak it for a while or just throw in?

I don't use chick starter, but I do add oatmeal to the veggie matter. It takes up a lot of the fluid left from blending and makes the slurry more manageable. I had a box of of oats that had been pushed to the back of the pantry. The box was so old that I decided to use it for worm food. Adding the oats worked so well I now share our oats with the herd. My worms are European Nightcrawlers and I use them for fishing as well as composting. I find that the addition of oats plumps them up better than veggies alone.

Crazyforworms, I soak any grain or mash in distilled water and then run everything through my Nutri Bullet. I puree all the worm food that way. It is just sooo much easier for the wormies. YUP...it does plump the kids up. I have even used guinea pig "mega" for them every month or so.

I like this thread.

Paul

Well I can see the wormographics are in. Everybody gives their wormies something besides veggie and fruit scraps. Now let's take a look at what grains can create in your worm bin. .......POTWORMS!!!! Yes those little "white threads" that you see wiggling around and multiplying faster than Grant went through Richmond. POTWORMS like damp fermenting grain. Don't be fooled by their size. A herd of POTWORMS can compete for all the food and leave little "Fred" going hungry. 2 ways to get rid of POTWORMS : Soak a piece of bread in milk and lay it in the bin. The little boogers will race to the bread and you can just trash them. But, that takes time. Take out all the compost from your bin and spread it out on plastic in the sun. They beat feet to the bottom because sun dries them out. Now lift your plastic so the compost moves to the middle. You will find all the POTWORMS stuck on the plastic. Let the sun take care of them. Unlike our little red wiggles who will wiggle back to the darkness of your soil or compost, POTWORMS can't travel on plastic. You also have to be concerned about your little red mites. You can only see them if they hop on something white. They love the milk bread. Red mites hang around the edges of the bin. They to can populate and compete for food. Hope this helps. Have fun!!! It's great to be a worm farmer.

Interesting solutions for extracting potworms. I will give the "milk toast" as try as I am not interested in "deleting" them because they are useful for fish food.

Mites on the other hand: Death to all mites!

Paul

Hear, hear Paul!!!
I hate, hate mites. Knock on wood, I haven't had any for a couple of years.

Very Very new to worm composting. I have two dark plastic bins with about 1 lb. of wigglers in each. They are looking good, still alive, wiggling and are comfortable on the top of my bin medium. Worms are about two weeks old. Looking for a well balanced diet to feed these critters.

They have been on table scrapes, coffee grounds and egg shells and milled paper. Would like to supply some more protein. Any help on an improved diet??

Thanks and my best regards. Tommy

Tommy, since your worms are "new", be careful feeding them chicken mash. Exactly because of the high protein. Wait until you have them for several months and familiar with their feeding habit. Google protein poisoning in worms or String of Pearls.

Aside from chicken mash I also use Rabbit pellets (food, not droppings). I use these to absorb extra moisture from the bin. Rabbit pellets consist primarily Timothy hay. However, using these does increase pot worms population.

Hi guys, thanks much for for your comments. Yes, I'll hold off on the chic mash for a while. That being said please give me a simple diet for feeding. BTW, I am noticing some pot worm larva in one bin. Where did that come from??? Best regards, Tommy

Are you sure they are POT WORM larva? I don't think I've ever seen them. The pot worms themselves are so tiny and I don't think pot worms become larvae, this is their end stage.

Diet for feeding? I'd say veggie/fruit from kitchen scraps is perfect. I usually pre-rot them in a bag or bucket, drain the liquid and feed the solids. This depends on the condition/humidity of the bin, definitely just the solids if the bin is on the wet side.

I do not use UCG in my systems. UCG can be applied directly to the plants/garden, if you wish to use UCG. In a worm bin, it just takes away space and another factor to imbalance the bin. In my bins it increased mite population, and adding UCG tends to heat up the bins (increased microbial activity). Besides, I cannot distinguish coffee beans from castings and I don't know how long it will take for my system to break down the beans' particles so I decided to reserve the bin space for the quality stuff. There are better stuff to add to a bin, like shredded paper.

Hi Otis, Thank you for this good info. Yes, for my diet I'm now using some fruit and plenty of veggie scraps, I want to add some (just a little bit of ground oyster shells) from Tractor Supply. Probably I'll grind a second time. Also maybe some wheat flour and some unadulterated corn meal. Otis, now back to the Pot Worm larva??????? Being a beekeeper the larva are very similar to wax worm larva same size and white color. Very very easy to spot with the naked eye. I'll investigate more. Thanks, again and my best regards. Tommy

Tommy, you might have BSF (Black Soldier Fly) larva. Some BSF larva in a worm bin is OK but if there are too many of them, the worms get distressed. BSF larva help break down matter for worms and these larvae work VERY fast compared to worms. This means increased composting process and depending on bin size, ventilation etc etc might overheat the worm bin, hence distressing them. Just keep an eye on them and adjust things accordingly.

Did you buy the oyster shells? You could get egg shells for free from places serving breakfast. In summer, like now, I do my runs on Mondays because the cafe is busier on week-ends. In the process, I also get the trays the eggs came which make good bin bedding, very absorbent.

I used to wash/rinse them in the past but don't do that anymore since last year. I put them in the sun to dry and once dry, roll a bottle over them and put them through a grain grinder. That's how I get my powdered egg shells. Got the grain grinder from amazon after I burnt 3 blenders.

Too much egg shells will not hurt the worms or the bin condition. Egg shells will bind acid but unlike lime, if there is no acid to bind, it will not change the bin into alkaline. It will just sit there as egg shells. I have not used ground oyster shells but I guess it would be the same.

• Hi guys. I got white larva really really bad bad.. The larva are about 3/8" to 3/4" in length and about 1/32" wide These guys are eating my worms out of house and home.. How do I get rid of these pests?? Thanks for your help. Tommy

Definitely BSFL! NO fun! Remove them by hand I guess. Also any unprocessed worm food which I doubt will be any left with the amount of BSFL you have. Refrain from feeding for a week or so (maybe more? Anybody?) The worms will not go hungry because they will be reprocessing the BSFL poop. Gross, I know but that's composting.

These BSFL are great fish food so if you know anybody who wants them. Full of protein.

And from now on, make sure you cover your worm bin(s). Or if this is not manageable, pile lots of shredded newspaper on top every time you feed them in future. There is never too much shredded paper.

With the speed BSFL eat, your bin might be on the wet side by now, correct? So shredded newspaper will help but DO NOT mix them (because it will heat up) into whatever you have in there, just put on top. If you need to dry out the bedding somewhat, cut like 8" or 10" strips of Corr. cardboard (CCB), roll it (allow a hole in the middle) and place them chimney like here and there in the bin.

Good luck Tommy and please post follow up. It will help others with same problem. Thanks.

Tommy, check this out.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5415881/please-help-i-don-t-know-what-i-m-doing#n=9

Yes I do have the BSF. I researched a dozen solutions to the termination of the larva and the one that I liked best was the starvation method. Started this about 5-6 days ago and have quite a few dead larva and live worms. Will hand pick the dead out and wait a few more days using the starvation solution. Thanks to all, I appreciate your input.

Tommy

OH BTW, I have been thru one bin this afternoon and hand picked the larva out. All dead and stiff. So far so good. Have live worms left and wiggling in this first bin. Will keep all four bins on the starvation diet for a few more days or so. We tried to BSF proof this new bin. 1st. I sealed the bottom drain holes with poly vinyl, Then added a heavy layer of shredded cardboard HEAVY, then added a potato sack on top of that and tucked in a layer of vinyl around the contents and covered. We'll see what happens. Tommy