Yes, I have done that in the past when my neighbour's kid had a pair. However, I only used it in my 2 x 4 ft. FT and it's outside. I remember that the urine smell was rather strong. Once I put it in the bin I used the garden hose (mist setting) trying to dilute it and I put it in only 1 spot at a time so as not to make the entire bin unsafe. Didn't notice anything bad happened other than heating up. I did put food on top of it and then shredded paper on top of that.

I would think it would be fine in small amounts, but from what I've read of rabbit manure, the amount of pee in the rabbit bedding makes it very high N (nitrogen) and quite liable to heat up in a damaging way once in the worm bin. I imagine any rodent pet might be much the same, but perhaps less so with gerbils since they pee very little. (Desert rodents) Perhaps if you leached some water through the guinea pig bedding before putting it in the bin, or else pre-composted it or at least pre-aged it in a bucket for a month or two or three. These things would be more difficult to do if your operation is all indoors.

thirstypotato, how are your worms doing?

Hmmm maybe I can alternate between the worm bin and the aerobic bin for the litter box stuff after cleaning. Both my bins are outside my house so I think it should be okay.

And I found a litter box bedding that is compostable too - made from spruce and fir timber so the brochure says

The gerbil bedding that i got was made from paper product. Looks like what egg cartons are made from but sort of fluffy. I don't know how long it will take for spruce and fir to break down and I doubt their moisture retention ability.

Someone here said it and now I've seen it: the worms eat the news much faster than cardboard. It may be due to the soy based inks since I know how worms love grains, but it also must have to do with how much thinner the news is.

Something to note for planters, seeds sprout readily in healthy worm bins. Has anybody here ever started roots on a cutting by burying it in a worm bin? I have root bumps on all fig cuttings I took, even semi green, a week ago. My trick was to wrap them in moist newspaper which was besmeared with worm castings, before wrapping it in a plastic bag. Besides Imagining any sensible root would go wild for worm castings nearby, I also supposed that the beneficial microbes in my never dried castings would prevent mold from developing.

I planted three pumpkin seeds a week ago, and pressed each into a lump of castings in the planting hole. They all sprouted and made it as sprouts when the weather was dry and I wasn't there, for several days, to water. God bless castings :)

when I most recently delved into a section of my most thriving bin, I found a section of pure unadulterated castings: fine black and granular. I suspect that the spot was formerly shredded newspaper, which they had slimed together with their paper machete skills into a mass and consumed.

11otis - this is the litter I'm looking at buying. Prob a small pack to start and see if the piggies like it and then hopefully the worms will too. http://www.catsbest.eu/catsbest_en/products/universal/

Baldeagleomelette - I don't even know if my worms are eating the paper or cardboard. I just assume they are since everything in the bin is new. So I'm hoping I will see castings soon but I am not going to poke around as I think I did too much of it at the beginning. When I checked it last night, most of the food I put in a week ago (about 200grams, same as the worms i bought), seems to be gone. By that logic, they shld be eating the bedding too. As long as they are eating something I guess?

phoenix: Oh, you mean those pellets. Yes, they absorb liquid quite well. I never had any of those small pets, I'm a dog person (German shepherds in the past) but every now and then I p/u used bedding of these small animals from PetSmart. I used the one you are planning to buy when my bin had too much moisture. Some times I add a handful to my pre-rot bucket if the contents is too liquidy. At one time, I got fine wood shavings. These didn't work too well for the worm bin and I threw them into my garden composter.

The late Mary Appelhof, author of Worms Eat my Garbage, says you can start avocado trees by throwing your avocado pits in the bin and taking them out when they sprout. Mine don't sprout, but that may be on account of I keep my scraps in the freezer during the week before putting them in the bin. Anyway, I've sprouted enough avocado seeds in my lifetime that the thrill is pretty much gone.

I haven't tried worm castings with cuttings, but they are recommended in seed starting mix. Not more than 10-30% of the mix, though. They retain moisture really well.

Castings are said to be good for suppressing fungal diseases. I lost a number of morning glory seedlings to damping off not too long ago, and I wish I would have had some castings then to keep it in check.

Sorry Phoenix, my rambling was directed generally, to all worm growers. I wasn't specifically advising you to poke around, since it's early on and all the signs are good (worms ate the food).

Still, though, poking around doesn't hurt, you learn from it and it's fun. When the worms are shuckin and jivin in their happy bin your hands will be slick with the snot that makes this whole refuse to good soil conversion possible. Stuff of life, man; primordial slime!

Good conditioning for them also. I don't need shy worms, I aim to train them to hand feed some day. Seeing as these guys can live so long in captivity, We have time. They know me as the melon man. I bring luscious treats and twice brewed coffee grounds, shells, etc, aerate and refresh their bedding, moisten them, protect them from summer's cruel heat and lusty varmints, tell them how they're my buddies and my guys, and I'll tell you: these bin worms are much fatter than native worms. I suspect they wouldn't last long in the wild due to my spoiling. But their eggs will. :)

baldeagleomelette: oh whoops! It's okay. I think i really poked around too much the first week they arrived and I don't think they were very happy about that. Kept going down to the drainage tray.

For now, I think I am still too squismish to actually touch them (i bought latex gloves for when I do need to pick them up). I'm actually hoping to see the castings soon - pretty excited about that.

I wear gloves when I'm going to be doing extensive bin operations, just because the stuff of life is very persistent once it gets under my fingernails. But for occasional poking around, it's good to use bare hands, because it lets you know if portions of the bin are heating up, too wet, too dry, etc. I also find it difficult to pick up stray wigglers with gloves on. Familiarity is the enemy of squeamishness.

I have yet to dare touch the stuff after the worms went into the bin. The first few days I was too eerked out to even put my hand in. Then I finally bit the bullet and used the gloves to pick up the worms tt had dropped into the tray. So maybe a few more weeks and I'll be willing to do so without the gloves.

Phoenix, they will grow on you slowly. Using gloves for now is fine. I can understand as I hated handling bait worms (and I felt bad for them).

I have a question for anyone. I have about 1,000 more worms I am about to add to my bin to make a total of 2,000 ( I have a good 2 to 2.5 square feet in the 18 gallon tote and I am overflowing with food scraps).

Is there any particular trick I should use to add them?

I was thinking of going to the opposite side of the bin from where I put the last feed and digging out a feed type hole and dumping them in there then covering them up with some extra moist bedding?

My friend who started around the same time as me had less problems with them escaping at first and he covered them instead of just dumping them on top of the bedding. I hope the worms in the bin already have made the bin seem like a friendly place and I just REALLY REALLY REAAAAALLLLLLY want to avoid the hours I spent deflecting escaping worms like I did with the first bunch I added.

I even thought about taping paper towels to the sides of the bin to discourage escapees? I have my window screen & dry shredded newspaper on standby if they try escaping as badly as the first bunch did.

I think the bin is likely to be much more comfortable now for the new worms than the brand-new bin was for the original worms. I would be very surprised if you have a lot of escape attempts this time around.

Where is this other batch of 1,000 living now? Are they in some kind of bedding? I think digging a hole, putting in the worms plus their existing bedding, and covering it up would be a fine idea. They can stay nestled in their existing bedding for a while until they get comfortable.

Well, I added the worms in about 30 minutes ago. Unlike the last worms they didn't freak out and immediately start flying everywhere when I put them in the bin. Knock on wood, so far none have crawled up the walls, knock on wood. Knock on wood. LOL.

I would say the majority of the previous roughly 1,000 were living around the feed I put in on saturday but I didn't disturb it. It looked like they had completely eaten the feed from last saturday and all the worm chow (or the chow disappears into the peat moss, but I lean towards thinking they aare eating it). Only a few were wiggling around the 1st feed site where I scraped back the bedding to make a spot for the new ones.

So, I dug a slightly over-sized feed hole. Put the worms in the hole. Covered the worms with the existing bedding. Added a bit of fresh bedding on top and so far so good.

I have noticed the shredded paper and cardboard pieces still look completely intact. Im assuming it is because paper takes a while to break down? My food scraps must have skipped needing bacteria to grow and then for the worms to feed on them bacteria because they were feeding on the food scraps more or less right away (I am guessing because I froze and then blended it? and it had carrots and a bit of expired apple sauce because I had heard both of those items are like worm crack).

I think there are some elements in some foods that they can eat right away. I suspect sugary stuff can be slurped directly if it is moist enough, which would account for their love of melon. Blended food probably provides some mush with sugars in it that they can slurp.

Paper and cardboard does take a lot longer to break down than food. If it didn't it wouldn't be much good as bedding! I harvested my first worm factory tray about 75 days after setting it up (properly should have let it go more than 90) and there were still some recognizable scraps of paper in there.

I feel so accomplished this morning thanks to my worms. I threw in a new batch of food for them last night, this morning I decided to have a look and there are so many worms in that corner of the bin!

They make melon disappear, that's for sure. My last feeding of frozen and diced watermelon which I thought was too much is totally gone in two days. Just a bunch of orange pop rocks on the cardboard in the area :) I intentionally withheld another feeding because I want them to work more on their bedding. I actually saw among bedding a ball of pure worm casting, pingpong ball-sized. Is that just one huge nightcrawler's dropping, or are the worms dragging this stuff around and getting organized? One could get a lot of value out of a small (and waterproof) camera in the bin.

worms will be your happy soil slaves and all they ask for is garbage and a little tenderness.

Coz I was so excited, I poked around again last night. I no longer longer see any French beans but the snow peas and blueberries are still left behind. That's quick work for a whole bunch of food to disappear!!

Happy to report 0 tried to escape (I see no worm trails on the sides of the bin or crisps). I am just extremely amazed, I was speechless to see how happy they seemed right away. There are so many factors that could have caused my fist batch to be freaked out, probably a combination of many things. For now all things are quiet on the worm front, very thankfully.

My 1 .5 pound Saturday feed looks to be nearly gone. This Saturday I am going for a 2.5 pound feed since I have the new worms (and the new worms looked to contain a lot more mature worms probably ready to eat). I am interested to see how much they can take(but I am going to definitely increase the weekly feed slowly). This next feed should be like a super treat because I got an entire honeydew melon, grapes, carrots, various greens and I am going to add a bit of apple sauce as well because I still have a good bit in the expired jar.

One of the grapes had some white mold on it, that shouldn't be a problem right? Are there any kind of food molds/fungus that would make you put food in the trash rather than feed to the worms?

One thing I am a bit scared/timid of using are banana peels. I don't want to attract fruit flies with the banana peels; But since my family eats a lot of bananas I might risk it because I hate wasting them all. I have read that banana peels really attract fruit flies; is that true or maybe just from people who didn't cover them well (like how other food waste attracts fruit flies if not properly covered)? There are definitely fruit flies in my area and I hate the things so I really don't want to invite them in for a party.

Most kinds of fungus you're likely to see on food are worm delicacies. I'd put it all in the mix, unless the underlying food happens to have gone very gooey and stinky, which would be bad, with or without mold.

Into each bin, some fruit flies must fall. Freezing any fruit scraps beforehand is a good precautionary measure but there are no 100% failsafes that I know of. Bury all fruit stuffs deep under bedding, with maybe newspaper cover on top, and hope for the best. I read everywhere that fruit flies can't burrow, and hope it is true.

Well, I just used the food processor to make up another batch of worm food. Made about 8 pounds this time. Might try the blender next because the food processor only does about 2 pounds at a time. Blending up the scraps really lets you know how much water is in them and I understand now why you shouldn't have to water an indoor bin. Food scraps are very moist (left some room in containers for freezing expansion, hope it was enough).

There is some of it as I was going along

And here is my final product (i figure one more freeze cant hurt)



Since my first feed was 1/2lb and my 2nd was 1.5 pounds I expect to feed 2.5 or 3 pounds tomorrow. In an 18 gallon tote with my blended scraps it seems like I need to spread them over about half the tote (about 1.2 square feet) to avoid making too much of a 'puddle/soup' in one area.

Whoa there, 2.5 to 3 pounds sounds like a heck of a lot for your next feed. I'd go a lot slower if I were you. If you're going by "worms eat half their weight each day" then I'd stop doing math and instead rely on your observations of how much of the previous feeds are getting eaten and how fast. Especially with a new bin.

There is a lot of water in food scraps, and then even more water gets produced in the process of decomposition - worms and their cohorts breaking down the food molecules for energy produces even more H2O molecules than were originally in the food. Fun science fact!

I agree with parsley. Better err on the side of not enough food than too much food in a new bin. You don't have to worry that they'll go hungry. There's always little bitty tiny things they can have.

I have a large (2 x 4 ft.) FT and when the food is a liquidy slop, I use several layers of egg carton as a container and half buried it, then cover with bedding or use fresh shredded newspaper. This will prevent the liquid to go down too quickly and sort of distribute it to the surroundings slowly. Also if it turns out it's too much, it's easy to remove some of it. Or, if it heats up, it's contained. You just can't rush the worms to eat and poop 24/7, LOL. They'll be so fat and lazy and won't move, not even to mate and that will be bad for us.

Very true. It is much easier to over feed them and/or have too little bedding. Err on the side of less food / more bedding and less wet.

Well, I just went and checked in the spot I put the 1.5 pound feed last Saturday and it looked mostly gone but the area was filled with so many worms I didn't want to dig around too much.

Since I figured they have managed to go through pretty much all of their 1.5 pound feed (thats only 3.5 ounces of food per day for 1 pound of worms) and now that I have added another pound of worms that a 2.5 pound feed would be okay? But I have a 1.7 pound feed that I could use for the sake of going slow at first (bin is now approaching 3 weeks old).

Since I planned to do once weekly feeding that 1.7 pound feed for 2 pounds of worms will be around 10% of their body weight per day in food. None will starve at that rate of feeding?

No, they won't starve! There is so much food in the bin already, what with the stuff you can't see well any more, the bacteria and protozoa, and all the bedding materials. If you left the bin alone for weeks at this point, they wouldn't starve.

If it were me, I would go with the smaller feed at this point, and then see how they do. Even though you have more worms in there now, the new worms are still recently relocated - it's good that they didn't flee the bin, but you wouldn't expect their appetites and activity to be at 100% yet either.

I am going to apply the 1.7 pound feed today. Definitely don't want a stinky bin, right now it smells just earthy.

I had added some newspaper that was put through a cross cut shredder but it seems to be matting down really bad. I haven't found anything that stays fluffy when moistened besides torn cardboard and peat moss. I have some 1-2 inch strips of newspaper already in the mix. But since the majority of my bedding is peat moss when I pour my pureed stuff in there that is pretty liquid (usually I try to leave about 3 inches of bedding under it) it seems like the peat moss absorbs/distributes the moisture pretty well.

I suppose I could be checking the bin underneath for any drainage but I did that once and didn't see any. I don't guess being lifted up and having the tote flex a bit really bothers anything?

Well, I added the 1.7 pound feed and using half an egg crate to contain it for the heck of it. I will dump it out if it seems to go slower than the others. I wanted to share some pics though

The feed in the egg carton and some to the side.


Covering the feed with a bit more egg carton



After I sprinkled DIY worm chow over the bin (seems to be gone pretty quickly)



After raking the old bedding back into the feed hole and adding a bit of fresh bedding.



Then the newspaper for shade/tell me how moist things are.

Well, I just fed the 2.5lb feed. I kind of wish I had done it before. The 1.7 pound feed and all the DIY worm chow was gone. It is just amazing to see how quickly they go through things. The only thing left from the feed was the egg crate; Which I can see using later when I up the feed to more like 4-5 or so pounds to hold the feed. But the state of the 1.7lb feed looked the same as it did several days ago, pretty much gone. So I think my worms are getting ready for at least 25% of their body weight daily (once weekly feed). Temperature is staying always between 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit.

Oh, a side funny note, I used just my hands instead of the 3 prong cultivator this time and I had one try to run away. Maybe should stick to the tool as maybe I am a bit rough with my hands lol

It's pretty hot where I am so a few of the blue worms tried to venture off and quite a few seem to be dead on the sides/lid of the bin. But compost is still being produced coz there seem to be a whole layer at the bottom now - done while I am away and they finished all the additional food that I added for my absence. They didn't seem to touch the strips of newspaper tho. I put in a whole bunch coz I was worried to add too much food before I leave coz of maggots but it happened anyway. Now the bin seems to have a lot of tiny flies when I open. *sigh*

Crossing my fingers I haven't seen any flying things in my bin (although its only about 1 month old at this point). I didn't know about bottom harvesters when I made my bin but in the bottom of my bin there are a bunch of 1/2inch holes that I covered with window screen. When I lifted up the bin to check for any drainage I noticed some fine dirt looking material in the bottom tub. Is it possible that worm castings are dropping through the window screen?

Maybe, but worm castings, especially while they still have moisture in them, tend to be granular (the individual poops are bound together with worm mucus, yum!) and aggregate together in such a way that I wouldn't expect them to easily drop down through window screen material, depending on how big the meshes are. Worms themselves, especially little ones, might wiggle themselves in and out of a screen and leave castings as they come and go. Are there any worms exploring down there?

I just found some black shelled insect in the bin last night when I was aerating it. Freaked me out completely that I shovelled that out and threw it into the grass patch near my apartment. God only knows what that is. I need to google it.

Well my bin is in my garage which has garage doors from the 70's so its like having an open door and right now it has been 90-100 degrees every day and bugs are trying to come inside to get out of the heat. I have glue traps down to catch some insects and I had previously thoroughly coated the basement floor with cypermethrin which seems to kill the insects before they make it that far back in the garage but I am worried to spray again and hurt the worms but also worried critters will make it back there. I might have to relocate the worms for a spray down because no matter what the bug people tell you when you have garage doors with 3 inch gaps around them perimeter spraying is not enough.

I couldn't really find any information about the effects of cypermethrin or other bug sprays on worms especially, ones that would relate to spraying and letting it dry then putting the worms back into the area after it aired out. With this weather (basically hasn't rained in 2 months, in severe drought and 90+ degree days) I find at least 50 dead bugs per week of all kinds that tried to make it in, not including the newly installed glue traps. Which gives me an idea, I might want to line the perimeter of my worm bin with some glue traps as a last ditch effort.

Does anyone have experience with putting old hay that guinea pigs don't eat into a worm bin? I chucked in just yesterday but I was thinking that the hay is pretty dry and I am unsure if it will even break down for the worms to eat

No direct experience, but it should be fine. Think of it as dry bedding, it will get moist and break down over time.

I have used it and it's fine. The dryer the bin, the longer it took and yes, hay counts as bedding.

I need to add more veggies I guess to offset the dryness but I think I lost a good portion of worms with the recent heatwave here. I dont seem to see any more wandering around. I'm wondering if I should get another batch of worms or just try to increase the current population

Phoenix, I am guessing you have an outdoor bin? Is there any way you can bring it inside? The heat here would just kill the worms if I left them outside. Heck, even my garden plants are suffering. I have never seen a green tomato on the vine for so long without ripening (apparently the effect of 80+ degree lows and 100 degree highs).

Unfortunately with all the flies currently it would not be possible. But it was a semi unexcepted heatwave when I was travelling so now that I am back, I've randomly added ice to it and watered down the outside of the bin to help with the heat. There is definitely a lot less dead worms outside. So that's a good sign. And hopefully with all these new veggies and compost materials from my new guinea pigs, I think the worms will be happier. Am thinking of adding a 2nd tray altho it's not even been 2mths

@11otis Wondering if I should soak the hay, like newspapers before adding them to the bin? there is a sudden spurt of mould growth, I am assuming coz the hay bedding is to dry for the worms to eat while the bin is damp enough to encourage mould growth.

The stuff that I used to get was hay (I guess Timothy Hay) mixed with the used bedding (paper mache) and since my bins tend to be on the wet side, this used bedding mix is great. So I put them in as is. I don't imagine hay by it self has a great capability to soak up moisture. I got mold etc. too, since it was USED bedding containing urine and droppings so I buried it to avoid breathing in the mold.

I do not soak newspaper/corr. CB. The only thing I soak are (coffee) burlap bags before I use a new one to cover the entire surface (on top of the shredded newspaper) because when I sprinkle/mist it, water tends to roll off it. I use corr. CB to line the sides of my bins and once wet (after a few weeks) they'll be replaced with new pieces. The used pieces are very easy to rip by hand. BTW, I only use low quality corr. cb because they are better for soaking up moisture and break down faster.

Phoenix, I was reading about your situation in the encouraging growth thread but figured I would post in here so maybe as to not clog up that thread too much

Definitely do anything you can to keep the direct sunlight off of them. IMHO you should just keep going with what you have and basically feed them nothing (make sure they have plenty of bedding) and see if they multiply or die. Like parsley said, if you can't leave the bin it probably isn't going to work out in the long term.

Did you remove the dead worms? Don't want them rotting in your bin. You could try putting some ice cubes in the bin during the hottest parts of the day (as long as you have good drainage, you could collect any leachate). You said you have no earth available, so I am assuming you have them out on a balcony? If so is the bin up off the floor so it can get good air flow?

I can't see any dead worms so I guess they decomposed pretty quickly.

I read about the ice idea too. Which I'll probably use when it gets hot again - it's been raining every day for the past week so I'm just letting the bin be for now.

The bin has legs so it's off the ground by a little bit. The worm supplier over here doesn't have worms until early Sept, so I'll have to wait either way.

For baldeagleomelette, did U find out why the worm/worms glow is that normal?

I look forward to learning from your posts. I just started my Worm Factory from Nature's Footprint 10 days ago. I have to say they have been responsive and helpful with my questions. Could someone tell me how to subscribe to this forum so that I receive new posts? Or do I have to keep logging in to check. thanks.

Go to the upper right "Your Houzz" "Edit Profile"

Then on the left, "Advanced Settings".

I don't know how it usually works. You may be defaulted to get email every time someone comments after you on an established topic, or on a topic you started. There are lots of other notifications like when someone "likes" one of your comment, or "thanks" you, etc.

Getting all those emails can get kind of old, so you can turn them all off and then just bookmark the forums you want to come back to. GardenWeb is pretty limited: I wish it had an option to have a "favorites" list so I could see all the new posts in the sections I usually read, but you can't do that.

Abby, it was a glow worm, an enemy of the worm's enemies, so it was a stroke of good luck. : )

My worms slowed way down during the hottest part of summer but things are picking up again with Fall in the air. Cycles... I have recently learned that worms are retarded for lettuce. Trying to increase their roughage now.

Winter will open a new can of worms as it is my first and i only heat intermittently with wood. Thinking about consolidating to one bin which i'll partially bury in a protected spot, and mulch well with hay and compost for the heat.