Paper and cardboard make excellent bedding. I would use the cow manure as food. I would sprinkle it on top.

I wouldn't bother freezing it, and certainly not use boiling water. You are bound to get a whole world of bugs in your bins no matter what you do.

Marshall

Thanks for the feedback on the bedding. Would it be good to sprinkle the manure crumbs on top and add some scraps in a pocket beforehand so it's ready to eat when they get here?

Sounds good to me.

Good luck
Marshall

Great, thanks for your help, Marshall.

Most instructions I've read don't recomend feeding right away when you get your worms but I suspect that most people feed a little bit anyway.

shredded cardboard is wonderful worm bedding, it will help keep the paper bedding from matting into hard clumps.

Here is how I preped my worm bed before getting my worms.
I lined the bottom and sides of the bin with cardboard.
I soaked shredded paper/cardboard in water and then wrung it out and fluffed it into the bed. (In the future I probably will not start anything out that wet.)
I sprinkled some powdered eggshell and some of the mineral rock grit the worm sellers were selling around in the bedding.
I also sprinkled some cornmeal around in the bedding. Supposedly cornmeal is a wonderfull treat for the worms and might help them get out into the new bedding in good order as well as encouraging them to mate.
Then I laid cardboard over the top of the bedding.
When I got the 2 lb of worms, they were in a cardboard box lined with newspaper and filled with the bedding they were used to. I opened up that box and added a little water to the bedding as it was a little on the dry side. I waited for the next evening to place the worms in their new bin.
When placing them int he new bin, I simply opened up the box, scooped out a space in one side of my bin and placed the whole box, bedding and all on it's side in my bin. That way the worms would be able to come out of the old bedding they were used to and into my bin's bedding at their own pace. I placed a very small amount of food across the bin from them. I always bury the food under bedding and keep the surface of the bedding covered with paper or cardboard.
I had no escapees due to bedding/transfer shock.

I learned that paper kept too wet then allowed to dry too much turns into rather hard clumps. When things are too wet or have too much food the smell is terrible. Cardboard is my favorite bedding so long as I have a shredder that won't die from shredding it. Black soldier fly larva are freeky when you first see them but you can get used to them. Rotting food like chunks of melon are hot if you accidently stick your fingers into them when checking to see how much food is left from the last feeding. And, the material in the corners of my wood bin seem to turn to castings faster than other parts of the bin.

Hope this info helps answer some questions. Perhaps it will bring up more questions.

...and another question....

You mentioned melon rinds getting hot and that made me think that pocket feeding is a bad idea. What can you tell me about layer feeding? How frequently do you feed?

Uh, oh, my first reply never appeared. Grr.

Now I forgot my questions...

Where can you buy mineral grit? Are there any ebay sellers?
How heavy is an 18 gal Rubbermaid bin full of castings? Will i be able to tilt it to drain leachate with a turkey baster if necessary? I have my bin exactly the same as yours, with cardboard around the sides and an inner cardboard lid. Thanks for the advice on putting the box directly in, I haven't heard that, it sounds like a great idea. Thanks for being so helpful, I'm going to try everything you have suggested. I know there were more questions that I'm forgetting.

I think cow manure might be dangerous I read some e coli posts on the soil forum, will definitely stay away from that stuff.

The mineral grit is probably not necessary but the link below should get you to the place I got mine (it is actually local to me so I got it when I picked up my worms.)

As to pocket or layer feeding. I don't really layer feed. I usually dig something of a trench in one side of the bin and dump the food in and cover back over with bedding, sometimes adding more bedding. Next time I feed, I do it on the other side of the bin. I try to leaves the center alone that way if both sides of the bin heat up, there is still a cool area of the bin for the worms to relax. So long as the entire bin does not heat up, the worms can move away from where it is too hot for them. The problems with layer feeding is that exposed food on the surface often draws stuff like fruit flys and other pests. Burying the food helps against that.

Probably the reason I notice hot spots is that I don't usually cut stuff up into small bits for my worms so There are often very large chunks in my bin.

How often do I feed. Usually once they seem to have finished most of the last feeding. I know that doesn't really tell you much but it will depepnd on your bin, your worm population, the speed at which the bacteria get to work on the food, the size of the food bit and how much the worms and bacteria like that particular food. Peanut shells take forever so I have fed them again even when the shells were still there. Other things that seem to take longer include, potatoes, raw carrot chunks, very tough fibrous material like corn husks, the textured outer part of a cantalope rind. Stuff that tends to get soft, gushy and stinky if left around will go faster.

I'm not sure how much the bin will weigh full of bedding worms and castings, I suppose it will depend on how wet things are too. If you can situate your bin in such a way that some holes in the bottom will drain into a bucket or tray under the bin it will be easier. My outdoor bin is wood with holes all over the bottom for air and drainage. The top is screen to keep flys out and the bedding is kept moist with cardboard over the bedding. The bottom is lined with screen though that won't keep worms from escaping as they can squeeze through anything. I've never had any escapes that I have seen, I suppose the environment inside the bin is enough to their liking that hey haven't been trying to leave.

Good luck

Here is a link that might be useful: Our vital earth

Lzyjo,

You don't need to buy mineral grit or anything else for your worms. You will be doing the planet a favor by just feeding your worms anything organic that you might otherwise put into landfil. You will also be doing your pocket a favor. Crushed egg shells are good.

You couldn't possibly do "everything" you read in these forums. Read what others are doing then do whatever feels right for you.

Cow manure is ok, so is horse and goat. Dog and cat waste is not ok.

Pocket feeding is good, so is spreading a thin layer of food on top. Take your pick.

The real danger to watch out for is too much moisture.

Regards,
Marshall

Ok, I'll take it easy and let the worms do their thing.

The idea of putting the "original" box the worms come in directly in the bin is great! It would reduce any trauma of extra handling and the worms have a familiar place to start exploring from. Goodness, I would hate to be plucked from my dinner and home and put into a new place without any warning! =o)
I was wondering if the raw items like carrot chunks and raw vegies would be easier for the worms to eat if I put them in my blender to shred? Would the bin become composted faster if the food is made into shreds? Thanks.
=o)

I'm just a newbie, so this is definitely not coming from an authority, but I have read that some people do. But I think the general consensus is that it is just extra work. And could burn up blenders. Here's a quote from the blender thread re food disappearing. hope this helps.

* Posted by squeeze z8 BC (My Page) on
Fri, Jun 15, 07 at 12:22

the key word is seem - what you really mean is the additions become invisible quickly as they mingle into the bedding - chopping things small and making sure there's lots of bacteria to work on the increased surface area will do it fine-Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: Burned up blender thread

Well, Thank You, lzyjo, that was....quite interesting! And it seemed to answer all the blending for worms questions a person could ask! I just figured smaller particles could rot quicker....more bacteria, maybe.

And here is a query that will make everyone begin to scream: Why can I NOT USE DOG OR CAT MANURE after the worms have eaten it...and made it as safe as can be...on my flowering plants? Why are those two, readily available to most homes, manures not a reasonable thing to feed to manure worms? The worms have changed the chemical structure of these manures, too, and I doubt that there would be any diseases passed on that would not be passed on by cows, rabbits, goats, horses, chickens, or other animals. So, is it just a stigma...like eating horse meat, or what?

I just wanted to say that all of the tips from tclynx really worked great. I put the box the worms came in the bin Wednesday night, with corn meal in the bedding. By the next afternoon they were all over the bin and today when i just checked there was only a piece of a dead worm left in the mossy stuff that they shipped in! Oh, and no escapees or worms on the sides. So I think the transition was a success.

Cancel that. I think I got way ahead of myself yesterday. When I saw how good the worms were doing I decided to take their old box out and put some food in. But this morning they have rebelled. I found one on the floor and when I opened the lid, it was like a horror movie, they were all over the rim and crawling all over the sides! What have I done? I added a bunch of dry newspaper yesterday, the bedding doesn't look to wet, but there was quite a bit of condensation near the top of the bin were the would-be escapees were. Luckily DH helped me pick them up, he was pretty surprised, to say the least. One even tried to burrow into the carpet! Those little buggers are fast! So as of now I took off the plastic lid for better ventilation, what else can I do?

I think i answered my own question. I searched on the worm digest and found a plastic bin review With this hint: "if youÂre seeing a lot of condensation on the sides and top of the bin, and worms are moving to those areas, that indicates a probable deficit of Oxygen in the composting mass. Better aeration is the answer! "

I hope the cardboard lid will work for now, or i'll rig up a screen top of some sort.

As to that question about dog/cat manure. Most people are cautioned about using those in their compost or worm bins because of some dangerous pathogens. There is no guarntee that all pathogens will be eaten up and made safe by the worms . I don't know if much study has gone into how well worms deal with pathogens and even if what passes through the worm is rendered "safe" there is little to guarntee that every scrap of material taken from the bin has gone through the worms and not been touched by anything "not safe" after. Therefore most people don't put dog, cat, or human manure into their worm bins. Cow manure can also carry one of the bad types of e. coli but time usually will take care of it (but that is where the problems with lettuce and spinach crops may have come from, non composted or aged cow manure being applied too close to harvest time.)

If one wishes to compost dog, cat, or human manure, they should make sure they are doing very active hot composting and letting the compost age sufficiently. See link below. Composting these materials can be done safely but it takes some management. By the way, the real dangerous part of handling cat poo is not the compost made from it but simply emptying the litter box. This is why pregnant women and imune suppressed people are not supposed to do this activity and anyone who does do it should make sure to clean up and was after. Ya know, like you are supposed to wash your hands after using the toilet, in this case cleaning the cat's toilet.

Here is a link that might be useful: Humanure Handbook

I just wondered about that because there is Mad Cow Disease and Parrot Fever which can also be spread by chickens along with other bird related diseases. Since there is no "stink" (hahahahahaha!) about these pathogens, nor seeming concerns about using worms to clean up sludge waste from sewage facilities, I think it is quite strange to exclude cats and dogs. We get mouse and rat dung out of the grains we eat in cereal form and I can think of nothing more dangerous than mouse dung in or around the house or my food....they really carry those diseases that can mutate toward humans.

I raise miniature dachshuds and have 12 adults and one collie. The city says that I must collect the excrement and put it in the trash for the garbage man to take away. That is fine, but why they won't let me "dig" it under and lime it, which would solve much of the issue in the first place and improve the soil as I go, I really don't understand. I DO understand not letting it stand on top of the ground in my dog pens! LOL! But it would seem to me that worms are an excellent answer for the dog and cat waste. Thanks for answering that query tclynx. I also viewed your web pages and am tremendously interested in those dome type structures! Keep at it and add some worms to your pages! =o)

hey shyspook, there's a dog waste septic system available, called the Doggie Dooley, it only takes the waste of four small dogs, but there's a site on how to make your own from a buried plastic trash can (with bottom removed) and septic starter, an enzyme available at the hardware store. It seems the only draw back is that breakdown activity stops below 40 degrees.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dog Waste Can

Get a good hot compost pile going and the dog waste can go in there along with all the other stuff you don't want to give your worms (onion and orange peals, milk, meat humanure.) Actually the chicken and other manure is best composted too. I think the situations where worms are used to clean up biosolids and stuff don't turn around and sell it as safe for your lettuce patch unless it has been heat treated and checked for heavy metals (at least we can hope that is the case.)

Don't get me wrong, I think worms are great and I love my worm bin. However, not everything compostable should be fed to your worms for reasons, including but not limited to; smell, flys, and other pests; pathogen concerns; and somethings worms don't like or are not good for them. These things are good to put into your big compost pile and really heat it up. This can also give you a wider variety of micro-herd to release into your garden soils and build your garden ecosystem.

Thanks for the tip on doggie compost, lzyjo! I have 3 pens for 11 Mini-dachshunds and one for a standard collie. Needless to say, I have a lot of poop to clean up. The city says I have to put it in the trash, but it is so heavy that I can tell the pick up team hates to see me put it out. I keep down the smells with lime and I use shredded paper bedding. This compost method may be just perfect for me as it operates like a septic system, or grease trap, instead of flushing it off to the city facilities. Thank you, again, for the tip! =o)