Last week I moved from Auckland to Otaki and thus my worms had to spend a few days travelling in my car. They also had to cope with changing from one bin to another and thus having their home being "upturned". Now after a few days here in Otaki they are seriously trying to escape. Did they have too much to cope with (delayed motion sickness or so ;-)) or is there something else wrong. The farm does not seem to dry and I don't think that it is too wet either. Over the recent weeks I have regularly given some lime and a few herbs too to cope with some beetles and the little red buggers described by someone else in this forum previously. Anyone some idea what to do before I loose all my worms? I did downgrade from two trays to one tray so there may be too many worms in the farm however they still have some food to go through. Thanks in advance. Silja
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Hello Earl, have uploaded a photo of the run away worms on my page. If Silja's and my experience is anything to go by, it would appear that they don't like having their living quarters disturbed so moving them to another tray ought to trigger an exodus.
That may indeed be the case. Because now after nearly a week of them not being moved around anymore, they seem to sttle more and more ... at least I find less worms trying to make a runner :-)
Isn't it always the way that when you don't want your worms to do a runner, they do precisely that. I've just started a new tray and transferred some worms from the middle tray into the upper one. The worms keep moving back from the top tray into the middle one and gather on the plastic lid which makes them very easy to harvest without other goodies. What kind of set up do your worms live in Earl? I have the three tier box like this https://ooooby.ning.com/group/gardeningquestionsandadvice/forum/topi...
How about you have sme kind of catchment tray underneath your worm farm and then expose the tray with the worms to the light? Usually they migrate away from the light. They also are said to like pumpkin and migrate into the pumpkin if you place a half pumpkin or so into your farm.
Can't be sure but I suspect the herbs could making them want to vacate. I have 5 large bathtub farms and have no issues with worms escaping. From time to time I have some beetles, mites and pot worms but they don't create any problems so I leave them be. The only visitors I deal to are flies and mice. Once a month I give the farms a light sprinkle of lime which works well to keep unwanted critters away as well as keeping correct pH levels.
To rectify I'd suggest you harvest the worms and put in some new bedding made up from aged compost shredded paper and the like. Add new food but leave out the herbs. I grow herbs but never put anything like that in my worm farms. Hope this helps ... let me know how it works out and good luck.
Hi there, thanks for the answer. However I don't think that the herbs are the problem as I tried them at several other occasions and always without any problems.
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Any idea how best to extract the worms?
To rectify I'd suggest you harvest the worms and put in some new bedding made up from aged compost shredded paper and the like. Add new food but leave out the herbs. I grow herbs but never put anything like that in my worm farms. Hope this helps ... let me know how it works out and good luck.