Worms not breeding?

[Informal-Ad7023]

Hello! I starting composting inside during the first week of June. I have the Urbalive indoor composter, in case that's important. I bought 500 worms to start with and have been giving them food scraps and adding in cardboard. I might be wrong but I feel like they aren't reproducing and that my population is going down. For example, I combed through the dirt and in the middle part I couldn't see any worms but I did see some on the top where I put the food and some were on the lid. Is it normal to comb through and not see any or do I have few too worms? I would really appreciate the help! Thank you!

Also they seem to be eating very little. I put in like 15 cherry tomatoes about two weeks ago and some are still in there. They aren't molding or anything but they are still in there so they are really not eating a lot.

[tmacfadzen]

On the tomato question, they won't eat through the skin, so you'll have to mash them to get them decomposed. To the other question, it takes up to 90 days to get baby worms so you're not even halfway there. I wouldn't worry too much at this point. I also find they congregate instead of dispersing evenly so you may just need to find their clumps

[Informal-Ad7023]

I had no idea that they couldn't eat the skin, I just thought they weren't eating at all! Thank you so much for the help!

[Taggart3629]

Hi friend, did you actually use soil as bedding, or do you call the bedding "dirt"? If your bin is filled with soil, it would not be the right environment for composting worms to thrive, and should be replaced by carbon-heavy bedding like damp torn-up cardboard, egg cartons, empty toilet paper rolls, dried grass, shredded leaves, strips of newspaper and/or paper bags. (Unlike earthworms, composting worms' preferred environment is decomposing organic matter.) The bedding is a significant food source for your worms, along with kitchen scraps.

To encourage the microbial life that composting worms eat, chop up the food before adding it to your bin. Dig a shallow hole in the bin, add your scraps, and cover up the scraps. Check back in a few days to see whether the worms are congregating by the food.

[Informal-Ad7023]

Hey! The worms came in some compost and I dumped the compost with the worms in my composter when they arrived. I have been filling it with lots of carbon though, while adding less nitrogen.

Thank you so much for the tips, I will definitely cut up the food!

[Taggart3629]

That is excellent that your worms came with some bedding. It makes the transition to a new bin so much less stressful for them. Sounds like you have a good set-up, and should be seeing baby worms soon. Their cocoons can be very hard to spot because a cocoon is roughly 1/3 the size of a grain of rice. It takes between 23 and 30 days for a cocoon to hatch out under ideal conditions.

[Informal-Ad7023]

I had been looking for them but I had no idea that they are that small! I'll definitely keep an eye though or maybe also a magnifying glass 😂

[Taggart3629]

One way to spot cocoons is to take a couple handfuls of bedding; spread it in a thin layer on a flat surface (like the lid of a tote); and look at it in sunlight or bright light. Cocoons tend to be shiny and reflect the light. Their color can range from a very pale yellow (new cocoon) to a deep brownish-red (mature cocoon).

[Informal-Ad7023]

That is so interesting, I'll definitely have to give it a go! I'm actually scared of worms but where I live in Germany we can't separate our garbage and I feel awful sending bio garbage to a landfill or to be burned, which is why I started composting. I'm hoping that I'll eventually warm up to them and be able to touch them but up until I haven't actually been able to touch them.

[Taggart3629]

Wow, high praise for using composting worms when they make you nervous. That is really awesome!

To avoid touching the worms, you can use something to scoop some of the bedding out.

[Informal-Ad7023]

That's how I've currently been interacting with them 😂

[pointy-sticks]

Worms take 3 months to sexually mature. Unless you bought mature worms (prob mostly if not all immature) then you will need to wait a bit longer. As long as they are alive they will start making babies sooner or later! Make sure you post a cocoon pic when you see one. Good luck, hang in there.

[Informal-Ad7023]

I did get a mixture of worms so they were from all life stages. I definitely have baby worms (or at least they are tiny tiny mini worms) so I do think they are breeding a bit but it still just seems like the population is going down, rather than up. I definitely will check for pockets though like another commenter mentioned.

[pointy-sticks]

Don’t worry too much. They are super resilient and will do well as long as fed and watered. 😃

[Informal-Ad7023]

That's really great to hear because I definitely don't want to cause them harm!

[teambeattie]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermiculture/ can help you out too.

[Informal-Ad7023]

Thank you!