Feed them oatmeal, cornmeal, that kind of thing. Some people say, rabbit food and or chicken mash works too.
All that protein will fatten them up. But careful when doing it to avoid the dreaded protein poisoning (SOP).

Strange but true: Worms can live underwater.

What they can not live with is lack of oxygen... or is that too much carbon dioxide?

Red Wiggler Worms sort of are long skinny things. This should not be cause for concern unless they need to look plump and tasty on on on a hook?!?

You have more than one worm inn?

Moisture tip? Put a 5 gallon bucket underneath the worm inn. Dump a 5 gallon bucket from the goldfish or guppy tank over the top of the inn. If you want to live life dangerously - only use one bucket but be quick about it.

I was gonna make some comments about the pros and cons of skinny worms vs obese vermi.....but EQ2 beat me to it. Fat worms, as far as I can tell from the volumes of information I've read thru the years, have never been mentioned to be preferable to the lean, mean ones I've always known.

I do know this: one thing about bigger worms is the s-l-o-w-n-e-s-s that they do everything. They are lacking in motivation, are fat, smug, lazy, and remind me a lot of my brother-in-law.

Also, I was gonna post something borderline sarcastic and covertly entertaining and charmingly instructive about the 'worm inn' like EQ2 did, but noticed that the posters' name was melissia 7 and I assumed that a female was that poster, and not wanting to be called a male chauvinist pig, sexist radical, or impudent, insensitive, worm herder, I bit my tongue and didn't.....knowing that it would happen.

Chuckiebtoo

At risk of having to call myself chuckiebtootwo, I too reserved myself from the tempting term obese, but I was right there with ya. I bet nobody has ever used that term to refer to the subjects of the vermi world.

Alas, EQ2 has been just a place holder for the real thing. That breathy life support thing they do until the patient amazingly takes a deep breath on their own. It needed to be done to keep worming alive. Not that others were not the bones and heart but without breathing it was difficult. Any hope we can also bring back that chicken lady?

Either way, my job is done.

Except for that whole borderline sarcastic and covertly entertaining and charmingly instructive part. I keep shaking my feet on each step but that part seems stuck on.

Melissia:

Not knowing your type of bin (plastic, wood, ?), I'm gonna generalize about your question of excess water.

If your worms' home has holes in the bottom for drainage, there should be only small amounts of liquid underneath it just where the holes are. pic

If it is plastic, it'll retain moisture a long time. The lid, if it has one, will have condensation on the underside....but just a little (it shouldn't be dripping off it).

These parameters are mostly described as ideal mainly for the convenience of the human being messing with the bins. The worms'll do just fine when the liquid situation is way too yucky for you.

I'll admit, however, that when I'm about to sort thru bins and stuff, I first take off the tops and dry them out with fans. Just less messy.

Sometimes we let these topics teeter dangerously close to falling off the edge around here but usually we get back on our feed. Being too serious about playing with worms can be kinda tedious if we let it be.

Chuckiebtoo

Disregard this edit-because-it-is-impossible-to-delete-a-duplicate-message-on-this-site.

This post was edited by chuckiebtoo on Sun, Jul 7, 13 at 11:03

cb2: ""Not knowing your type of bin (plastic, wood, ""
Wasn't Melissia talking about the worm inn?
This one?
http://www.theworminn.com/

Here is a link that might be useful: Worm Inn

Are the worms skinnier than when you got them?

Well, thanks otis11, for exposing my ignorance re Worm Inn. I have never heard of it. My last couple of posts have been even more inane than usual because I thought the "worm inn" references were typo's of worm BIN.

DUH!

EQ2, you should be able to scrape that mess off your shoe now.

Chuckiebtoo

Sorry cb2.

I know the wrigglers are skinny... but I'd like to use my Euros for fishing and for now, they wouldn't attract a very big fish : )

About a year ago, I did feed some chicken mash and so did my husband, so that Inn went anaerobic -- I had to start fresh. So feeding protein makes me nervous.

Thanks everyone... I don't think oxygen is a problem because I have them in the Inn... I'd think it would get more oxygen than most bins. So I'll try and water a little more often.

In summary, you think a little more water and protein?? Not sure on the protein... How much feed at a time? Because apparently last time... we overfed them.

When I look at the Worm Inn, it doesn't have a large TOP surface area. The entire inn gets lots of oxygen but just not a large enough area to spread your high protein worm food around. Just a suggestion if you still want to feed them high protein stuff, give a light sprinkling on the top and moisten a bit with your spray bottle and is it possible to leave the top open? That way the worms will feed only from the underside of the stuff and not from all over. My thinking about Protein Poisoning and SOP is because the worms got greedy and started gobbling on the itty bitty dry stuff (not worm ready) and the gasses started to build up in their guts and literally blew them up section by section rather than released into the air. I guess worms don't know how to fart, LOL. Sorry.

PS. Keep the stuff rather moist so it keep processing.