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its all gone wrong

18 years ago

I bought a wormary off ebay 2 months ago. Followed the instructions but i check on it once a week and there are always 3 or 4 dead worms liquified on the top. I am feeding it on kitchen waste i.e. carrot peelings, tea bags veg and salad off cuts rabbit and guinea pig poo. Also there are alot of mites and flys on it.

Can anyone give me any advise on what to do next?

I have not added any bedding since I got it.

Comments (6)

  • 18 years ago

    When you dig in to check on the worms or to see if the food is gone, do you find a population of live worms? If so you are probably doing ok.

    Do you bury the food under bedding? If not, you might start doing that to cut down on the fly problem. Flys/maggots, also like a slightly wetter environment than the worms do so if the bin seems wet then you might want to add some dry bedding.

  • 18 years ago

    How many worms do you have and how much food are you giving them?

    What kind of bedding are you using?

    Is the bedding very moist?

    Marshall

  • 18 years ago

    Where did you put the worm bed? Is it too hot there?

  • 18 years ago

    thanks to all of you for your help

    hi tclynx
    I do find live worms. however there are 5 - 10 dead worms in there each week.
    there are lots of eggs in there now and a few baby worms. I do think I am over feeding it so should I go through and try to remove the excess food?

    hi marshall2000
    I do not have any bedding left that came with the wormary so I was just adding shredded paper.is this correct?

    hi tclynx
    I do not think it is too hot it is outside in the british weather but it is in the shade. I have just been mixing the shedded paper in, dry.

    what do you all think?

  • 18 years ago

    Shredded paper is good bedding, so is corrugated cardboard. Be careful if you take out excess food because there might be baby worms amongst it. As a rule, feed half the body weight of worms a day .... but you can feed a lot less too as they eat the bedding as well. More problems are caused through overfeeding than underfeeding.

    Good luck,
    Marshall

  • 18 years ago

    You probably just need to add more bedding and stop feeding for a while. The biggest problem people new to worm farming have is they feed too much and wind up with a rather ucky wet worm bin. Most of the unplesantness of worm bins comes from too much food which can stink, attract flies/maggots, and cause everything to be too wet.
    Add more bedding to dry it out a little (it only needs be as moist as a wrung out sponge) and wait to feed until you can't find any of the previously fed food. Also, most people recomend to bury the food under bedding.

    As to heat, if the bin is outdoors and never gets touched by direct sun, you are probably ok at least this time of year in british weather. At least my bin has survived 97 degree days here in Florida. My bin is wood and gets plenty of air. Some plastic bins with little air flow might have more trouble staying cool.

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