Four worm experiment - the saga continues
I finally broke down and sifted through my four worm experiment bin. Remember, it was the one I had put the chicken feed in. Well I finally dumped it out onto a garbage to search through for any worms. It was smelling an awful lot like silage, I think the chicken feed was beginning to ferment.
Question: Can worms get drunk?
I was actually quite concerned for quite a while, i wasn’t finding any worms. I did ultimately find three so I’m hoping I just missed the fourth and that I threw him back into the bin with some bedding. It actually was going back into the bin much looser so it didn’t all fit back in. The extra I threw into a bucket that I’ve been aging for starting a new bin. What I’m hoping to discover was that there were some worm cocoons in the bedding and that it will self populate with worms. I wasn’t able to identify any cocoons. Ground corn can look an awful lot like a worm cocoon.
I think I’ll let the boys go for a little while before search theirs. At least we didn’t put chicken feed n theirs so they shouldn’t have the fermenting problem.
Be sure to check up on Bentley’s four worm experiment over at RedWormComposting.com. He is the one that gave me the idea for the experiment.
Allen
That’s a good question, Allen! (about worms getting drunk)
I’ve wondered that myself on a number of occasions. You do need to be a wee bit careful with any starchy wastes since they can ferment quite easily, potentially causing issues.
I can remember trying out ‘Timbits’ (little donuts, just in case you aren’t familiar with the Tim Horton’s donuts chain) as part of worm composting lab experiment in university. Well all that starch and sugar started fermenting in a hurry (and the bin smelled like a brewery). I swear those worms were drunk - they seemed pretty sluggish.
Anyway, good luck with your challenge! I’ve found at least one or two cocoons so far, but still no baby worms.
B.
I remember the smell as one of fresh silage. Throw tons of fresh grass in a silo and you get some pretty potent juice squeezing out in a couple days.
I’m going to give the 4 worm experiment worm bins a little more time then I’ll likely dig through them again to see how it’s going.
Allen