hello Lynnette I do not think it will do any real harm but I can tell you your worms will do better if you leave them to get on with what you put them into the worm box to do, also do please be careful, only you know what you have put in there and I do not mean just the worms kind regards John

Think of your worms as gulf coast residents and yourself as Hurricane Katrina or Rita. Just kidding.

But, observing the worms and "stirring" the bin contents are two different things. Observing can be gently raising part of the bedding, like when you place foodstuff into the bin, disturbing as few as possible. Stirring, IMHO, would be disruptive of the "infrastructure" of it. If the worms become dissatisfied of their surroundings, you will know about it soon enough.

This is not to say constant disruptions are disastrous, but the opinions of the worms would maybe differ.

Chuckiebtoo

I bought a guinea pig and decided it would be brilliant to use the bedding and poop for the worm bin. Anyway, the poor bin in question has gone through alot recently. First it was harvested using the dump and sort method, then I decided to harvest another bin and the castings were very wet. So I put screen on this bin (newly bedded) and dumped the wet castings/worms on top. This worked fine. I was left with nice, fluffy castings and most of the worms slithered into the bin, however it compacted the shredded paper bedding underneath. So I fluffed it. Then I went through my cabinets and found old baby formula, old baby food, and old cheerios == all of which I decided to dump into this bin. Poor bin. (I didn't moisten any of these items.) I just dumped them in and put the screen and castings back down on top. When it was time to clean the guinea pig cage the castings were getting pretty dry so I put them into a container.

The food I had put in was getting a little sticky and gross -- I think it formed a hydrophobic layer. I added about 8 inches of bedding to the bin. Nothing seemed to be happening, so I decided I needed to get the bedding wet. The bin was pretty full, so I moved all the contents of another bin over and put half of the bedding in half of that bin. I added water to that bedding and buried some food scraps. In the first bin I also added water, but started worrying about the worms.

Well -- this story is getting long, so I'll cut to the chase. I ended up stirring the bin (MISTAKE) The next day I found a huge clump of worms huddled on the top of the bedding. Today I decided to check for worms in the lower catch bin. There was a huge clump in there. I dumped the worms back in the bin and left the lid off. Wish the poor guys luck. They're definately not pleased with me.

Glad I got that off my chest. I promise to be kinder to them in the future :).

Carnationman,
Whatever do you mean about "being careful"?
:)
Tina

what I mean Tina If you must play in the worm bin stiring things up , remember whats in there ,like rotting food animal dung ect ect and be sure to wash your hands after or better still use gloves. Having said that during my years as a plumberI had my hands insome really obnoxious substances and I am still here but I think I whould now be more carefull