CB, congrats on the gift. It should pull its own weight in providing for those transplants come spring.

Uncle Jim just sent a notice that my worm herd should arrive in 1-3 days. The food has been in the feeding tray for about 4-7 days so it is worm ready. Started with coffee grounds, apple-potato-persimmon peels, and leaf greens.

Way to go Charlieboring.

Food you prepared sounds like a good first meal. Remember to add lots of bedding.

Good luck and happy wormin'

What a great gift! It is nice that she supports you in this.

I got mine from UJs also Charlie, did you get the wigglers or the Euros? Did they still have the double your order deal? I think it was $20 per 500 to double it which brought the per squirm price down a little.

My wife is preparing to throw away the Thanksgiving pumkin. The worms should love that, right?

A bit of target practice will process them right up for the little guys.

Good luck with the Worm Factory....great Christmas gift for any kind of gardener. I've never owned one - just have my own homemade versions which seem to work for me. And re the pumpkin, don't throw it out because it's has to be one of the worms favourite food!! I just cut my Halloween pumpkin up and shredded it by hand and fed it to them in small amounts. They will be ALL over it in about two days. Even if you just put in a portion of it (skin side up) you'll find it to be thick with worms just underneath when you lift the piece up.
Good luck and have fun,
Harry in Vancouver Canada

how about a picture of your bin ?

Great gift Santa brought you Charlie ! Nice way to end 2014 and start 2015, I wish you good luck with your worms !

My 1000 head worm herd from Uncle Jims arrived yesterday. We were not at home and the high temperature for the day was 21 degrees with a wind chill at 0 degrees. The box was left in the mail box. I was sorely afraid for the herd. I took the box to my basement; opened it and found inside of the paper and bubblewrap a green felt draw-string bag tied at the top. Inside the bag, there was a mass of worms and ground coconut husks. The worms did not move much, but when I emptied them into the feeding tray of the worm factory, some started to wiggle. I covered the worms with some damp shredded newspaper. I have had food in the tray for over a week since I expected the worms a week earlier. I hope the vegetable and fruit scraps are ready to feed the herd. I will not look at the worms to see how they are doing until Friday, since I want them to get used to their new home. I placed another empty tray on top of the feeding tray and place the top on that tray. Left the light on all night to prevent excape attempts. This morning I had to fight the temptation to take a peek!

Thats some miserable cold the east has been having. Hopefully those guys were makin enough heat of their own to keep themselves warm. Just a guess but if they were wigglin then they have a good shot at coming through, I would peek :)

I have about a pound of red wrigglers in my worm herd. I put in about 3-4 cups of food a week before they arrived. They have been in the factory now for 2 days and appear to be eating the food. Question: If they consume 1/2 their body weight a day, How long will it take the herd to consume 4 cups of food? The volume of the herd upon arrival with compost bedding was about 4 cups. When should I add food?

How much does the four cups of food weigh? Worms can eat 1.5 times their weight per day. My problem is not knowing how many worms (in poundage) I have now as I've had my two worm farms for 3 years now. If it's not stinky, I would think the scraps are being consumed. If the herd cannot keep up with the input, the input will begin to smell methinks.

I've been told that it's difficult to under-feed the worms as they will continue to munch on bedding and their castings but you can decimate the herd by overfeeding. Hope this helps.

In a contained system it seems wise to feed in pockets. Bury some food in a corner and plant a flag so you remember where you last fed. That way you can check to see how much food is remaining before adding more and the worms have plenty of room for escape if the food heats up. When it looks like they are really getting into the last feed add more to the next corner so it will have time to go through its rotting period while they finish the last feeding up.

I have also seen where people add new food well reduced and thinly spread evenly across the top then covered with bedding. This would give a much greater surface feeding area for the worms but also means the entire bed is exposed to the same conditions leaving only down or out as escape options. If surface feeding then it may be a good idea to only do half of the surface at a time.

Which is better for the verd I dont know, also my experience is light and nothing like this container system of vermicomposting so the above is only anecdotal advice gathered from reading not from experience.

I agree with Nevex.
The best way to know when to feed is by checking. Add new food when the last feeding is hardly recognizable.

""they consume 1/2 their body weight a day"" in IDEAL condition. Until now, I still don't know how to achieve THAT ideal condition where the worms will eat that much.
Did anybody here? Please tell.

Either chop the food up in small bits or run it thru a food processor, juicer or similar product will speed up the process.

I fed my worms for the third time, although they were really not in need of feeding. But I wanted to try preparing their feed with a food processor to see how they liked it. I had banana and apple peels and coffee grounds. Chopped it up real fine and put it in an empty corner and covered it with damp bedding. I will check tomorrow to see if the worms have begun to eat it.

I fed my worms for the third time, although they were really not in need of feeding. But I wanted to try preparing their feed with a food processor to see how they liked it. I had banana and apple peels and coffee grounds. Chopped it up real fine and put it in an empty corner and covered it with damp bedding. I will check tomorrow to see if the worms have begun to eat it.

Charlie

Worms will start eating from underneath first and when I see a lot of worms on top of the food that is when I will add food in another corner , seems to work like clockwork.

A B C

Apple peels
Banana peels
Coffee grounds

For some reason this seems to be the most common thing starting vermicomposters add to the bin. Must be some law. I think it is also what all the drawings show such as in Mary A's book "Worms Eat My Garbage. The grouping certainly is a favorite for vermicomposters.