Red Wigglers that don't wriggle

14 years ago

I see in several posts from time to time comments about worms being very active and wriggly. I have bought Red Wigglers for bait before and they were hard to get on a hook because of all their wriggling.

The Ef in my bins have never been active. They are quite sluggish. I have had them for 3.5 months. Started them in a Gusatino WF,added the 2nd tray to GWF 6 weeks later and moved all the contents of the GWF into a large flow through bin three weeks after that. They have never been wiggly worms. There have been times when conditions were too dry, too wet, over fed, not over fed etc. The ambient temperatures here in NW FL have varied from a couple of weeks of heat wave temps hovering near 100F to low to mid 70s, but mostly mid 80s. I have put bottles of frozen water in the bin to cool it down and about the only effect of that has been one worm died from coming into direct with the frozen bottle.

Under what conditions do red wigglers become active enough to deserve their name?

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Comments (5)

11otis
14 years ago
Same here! Where did you get your worms from?
What kind of flow through do you have?

I suspect that my original worms are not EFs. They just call them red worms. Well yeah, most of the worms are red anyway!

"Under what conditions do red wigglers become active enough to deserve their name?" We all know the answer to that: Under IDEAL condition, whatever that may be.
rockydoc
Original Author
14 years ago
I got my worms from "Uncle Jim's Worm Farm". There was supposed to be a pound of EFs, but it looked like only about half that. I have seen a number of other's posts saying the same thing about that source. Mine were never lively.

My flow through is a wheeled city garbage can of approximately 50 gallons with 5/8"galvanized conduit placed 1.5" apart forming a grate and with a harvesting window cut out below the grate.
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fosteem1
14 years ago
The only time i have seen my Red Wigglers really wiggle was when i was transferring them from a Rubbermaid bin to my flow through. There was a breeze i believe the air movement caused them to wiggle. They whipped about nose to tail quit a bit then burrowed quickly into the compost.
mndtrp
14 years ago
The only time mine really start moving is when I try to pick one up. Otherwise, they just slide around relatively slowly. When the temp is in the mid 70's, they more quickly dive below the bedding.
11otis
14 years ago
Then maybe your bin is too hot?