Another Mass Die Off of Worms with Some Good News Too
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 พ.ค. 2024
- Hello!
It’s been a crazy 2 weeks. Some bad worm stuff has happened 😩. I share with you what happened and why I think the die off occurred.
There is some good too though! Let’s see what’s going on together!
Thanks for watching and please consider subscribing as well as giving me the old thumbs up 😍.
Yours in the dirt,
Jayne
Jayne! Im so sorry!! What a terrible situation for you; I know how much you care for your worms. Thank you for sharing your situation with us so we can all learn from your tragedy. Im so sorry!!!! And a big howdy to Cameraman.
ThAnna Katie. It was an unexpected discovery 😩. I’m just glad I checked Black Beauty when I did and was able to save some worms. I really thought the depth of the totes would provide heat protection. I was wrong.
Luckily I have plenty of healthy worms and this is a step back but not a fatal blow. Cameraman says hi back! 😍🪱
@@RockinWorms I only have 2 totes of worms, so I keep them in the house. Yes, Im in Florida too, and the heat is tough for all kinds of little critters. My pup enjoys playing outside in the morning, but before Im done with chores, he's on the back porch yelling to go back in the house.
@@katiem9644 Smart pup! It’s hot already and the summer has just started 😳🥵. My chickens eat in the early morning then basically rest in the shade until after 6pm when it starts to cool down a few degrees. The only thing I remind myself is that once past 95-97F it doesn’t seem to matter much if it gets hotter.
I keep a close watch on the heat index so Cameraman and I don’t heat stroke out! It’s a real thing!
You and puppy be careful! 🤗🪱
Also live in Florida, and had variations of your issues happen to me in the summer. Because of the summer heat, I only feed precomposted material to the worms during the summer; no kitchen scraps at all. The food “heat” lets off outside in my compost tumbler.
Also, discovered the benefit of using plastic bubble wrap at a top layer to keep in moisture. Before that, opening the bin was a horror movie with a ring of worms at the top edge under the lid. Not sure if due to chasing moisture or bedding heat. This was especially true with the hungry bin, but had some worm lid explorers with worm tower 360 as well.
Other thing I’ve changed is to not “fluff” the worm bedding during summer. If there is heating capable bedding in the bin, aerating may drop temp today, but will supercharge the microbes to increase temp even higher tomorrow!
Thank you Kay for your words of wisdom and experience! I’m definitely taking notes for when (if!) I ever move back outside. I really like the idea of only feeding pre-compost that has fully expelled its heating up capability. Smart!
As for the fluffing, I get what you’re saying. The heat can get into the new pockets faster. Hmmm. What about adding in things like egg cartons and paper rolls in the beginning of the summer to add stable air pockets?
I haven’t used bubble wrap much. Inside I’ve not seen the need. I appreciate the heads up to try it for outside worm containers. 👍🪱🤩
Big hugs, Jayne. Thanks for sharing the challenges as well as the successes. ❤
Hi! It’s important to share it all. I made that promise to myself when I started the channel. I knew issues would happen, didn’t know which ones! We all face challenges, make mistakes, and struggle at times. Fortunately we have a very supportive community! 🥰. Together we get better! Thanks for being a part of it 😍🪱🤩
Hi Jayne and camera man, really sorry to hear of the unfortunate issues. Really brave of you to share this with us, and to be so honest with us so you could help us learn. Much respect to you. Big boy being more moist could of helped to keep it slightly cooler in the same way as we sweat to keep cooler. Thanks again for sharing. Mark : )
Hi Mark! How are you? Yea it kinda sucked but that’s the way it goes sometimes 😬🥲. If my experiences can save anyone else some heartbreak it’ll mean the whole mess wasn’t for nothing. I have to many worms that even this large die off didn’t hamper my operations much at all. Someone with a small number of worms could get wiped out and that would be really sad and bad.
To be totally frank, I’m so confused on how the moistness affects the worms. Other than breathing I mean.
In discussions it’s been out forward about how a wet towel will transfer heat quickly when taking something out of the oven vs a dry towel. But wet sand is cooler and dry sand can be burning hot. it’s standard to use bone dry peat to coat worms for shipping to protect them from temperature variations during shipping. But wet worms will freeze and dry ones won’t.
It’s confusing to me!
Anyway, my loss could save someone some pain and I’m all for that! Thanks for watching Mark 🥰🪱😎
Jayne! Sorry about the worms. Thanks for sharing the experience with us. I'm located in Toronto, Canada and keep my bin in the basement. Lately I'm sharing worm farming with my Taiwanese community as well. Climate there in summer is hot and humid too. Will share your valuable experience🪱❤️
Hello! Basements are generally a great place to work farm. There are challenges there of course but overall it’s a more controlled environment while still not being right in the middle of people living spaces like my living and dining rooms are.
Hot and humid is only going to get worse so we need to figure out how to address the issues now.
That’s great that you’re spreading the worm wrangling word!! The more worm wranglers, the better! Thanks for being here 👍🤗🤩🪱
I’m so sorry this happened to you and your worms. I greatly appreciate that you’re willing to share the bad along with the good so we can keep learning. I have an UWB- I haven’t decided if I like it or not. It definitely doesn’t retain moisture well. I unzipped it today to see if the worms were congregating around a banana peel I put there a few days ago. I’ve never put one in that wasn’t frozen first. I had a piece of bubble wrap on top. I lifted it up and there was moisture on the underside of it along with one young dead worm. I’ve never had moisture on the bubble wrap before- maybe it’s because we had a few warm days here in MA ( mid to high 80’s) and the UWB heated up. I’m totally guessing. I dug down a bit and the bin had gotten way too dry. There were lots of worms around the banana peel. I quickly partially defrosted cut up food scraps from my freezer and put them in the bin. The bin didn’t feel hot to me but it was way too dry. I added water. I’ll need to keep a closer eye on it. I have some worms in a mortar tray. Time will tell if I prefer the mortar tray over the UWB. The highest temp my pre compost has reached is 106- after adding yeast as you’ve suggested. I’ll keep playing with that. I’ll go back and watch your pre composting videos again. I’m a slow learner! Hang in there. You’re a wonderful source of information. 💕🪱💕🪱. Thanks also to Camera Man!
Thanks Mary 🤗. It was a tough 2 weeks in many ways other than the worms as well. That’s how life is sometimes. But we do what we can.
I’ve heard others say that the UWB is difficult in a variety of ways. Drying out is just one of them. Perhaps a lot of the challenges are very environmentally specific..? Whether it’s keep in a basement or outside or where it’s normally hot or cold or dry. Things like that. So one person can love it and another totally not! I do personally very much like the bins but they have challenges too. Mostly the space requirements. It’s all trade offs, isn’t it?!
I’m glad you were able to catch your UWB before it got too dry. As the heat of the summer comes in it’ll definitely be something to keep an eye on 👍.
Your pre-compost at 106F is doing fine. You’re right to keep playing with it. You’ll find the combination of ingredients that works best for you. As I said in one of my videos, it took me quite a few batches before I worked out what is best for my mixture. Stick with it - it’s worth it!
Thanks so much for watching and your support! 🪱❤️
So sorry you went through this ! Thank you for sharing and helping us all to learn.
Thank you Tracey 🤗. If my sharing saves anyone having to go thru this then some good has come out of it! 🪱👍🪱
Hi Jayne, I know how bad it feels to lose worms. The tote that survived was a lighter colour, I believe. Maybe that kept it a few degrees cooler as well? You sure did some Herculean problem solving on the fly. Wishing you smooth sailing from here on 🤗
~ Sandra
Hi Sandra! Thank you for your ideas when I was in the midst of it! You and the worm chat group were very helpful to me getting thru it. ❤️❤️
You’re right - Big Boy was the lightest colored tote. The 45 gallon was a slate grey and Black Beauty was well, black 😝. It certainly may have contributed to the difference in tolerating the heat 🤷♂️. It probably was a bit of everything adding up to being survivable or not.
I wish me smooth sailing too! 🤣. Or at least a few weeks of calm water so I can catch my breath.
Thank you again for your help and support during my latest crisis - the worm community is awesome! 🪱🤩🪱
Hi Jayne, I'm so sorry to see what's happened. I know you, like all of us, really care for your worms and try to give them happy, healthy lives. This was an unfortunate event that we can all learn from. Thank you so much for sharing this with the community.😘
Hi Bill! Yeah it really sucked 😬. Luckily I have plenty of worms inside and while a set back, it wasn’t devastating enough to where I had to start over from scratch. I sadly know worm wranglers where various situations happened (heat, freezing, mechanical failures, etc) caused so much damage to their worm operations that they couldn’t recover. It’s a big loss to everyone when that happens.
This type of situation also reminds all of us that worn wrangling isn’t just tossing some worms in a bin and walking away for months and coming back to a gazillion worms. There’s more work and thought and action that needs to happen for there to be success. Just like with any animal or hobby or… anything!
At the risk of sound sappy, it’s these rough times that make the successes even sweeter!
Thank you Bill for being a part of this great community 👍🤩🪱
@@RockinWorms glad you can see the silver lining Jayne.😍 You'll soon have the stock back up and running, Not much chance of my bins overheating, even in the greenhouse, but it could happen. I use a lot of shade on warm days and close everything up when the temperatures drop. I've just opened up another breeding bin from 3 weeks ago and got all the worms out and moved to a new home. I left all the eggs and baby worms in the old breeding bin, which is now their grow out bin.Should I add any amendments to the 3 week old bin? I spread worm chow on the top and mixed it in, but basically, it's just pre compost and eggs. Good to see you've still got that smile on your face Jayne, keep it up.😘😘🪱🪱🪱
@@funnysods Hi! Sorry for the delay in responding. There’s actually been a few silver linings to the die off. While absolutely not the way I wanted it to happen, scaling back on my worm holding has made managing what I do have much easier on me. I have reorganized a bit too. I have PLENTY of worms left. It did not affect my breeders or cocoon production at all. That’s still full steam ahead. 👍.
As for your newest cocoon/nursery bin, you don’t have to feed it anything at all until you see lots of wisps. Cocoons don’t eat. And there’s plenty of leftover food for the wisps for several weeks. A easy indicator that you should start feeding a little worm chow is if the newspaper covering is almost gone.
One worm wrangler I know does use a little worm chow mixed into the cocoon bedding with the intent that the chow will heat up a little bit and the heat will encourage the wisps to emerge. This would be a good trick during cooler months! 👍🪱
Sending you hugs auntie Jayne, it seems like you are still feeling the stress and anxiety of the situation that has happened. It must have been awful at the time, and with cameraman away and not having that support.
I’m glad you have managed to safe some and sort the rest out. Must of been a lot of work for you.
I’m glad you are safe and now have cameraman with you .
I don’t know what I would have done differently or better except that knowing it’s got warmer- put in some frozen bags of food/ice or frozen water bottles. I do know other worm people have to do that in your area….
Sending love from us xxx
Thank you Cheryl! I won’t lie - it was a LOT of work digging the totes out into buckets and bringing them inside to dump into a new 45 gallon tote. Luckily I had empty totes!
It was also close to 100F when I was doing the digging and carrying g and cleaning out as well. I was dying 😝. Not as much as the worm though (gallows humor there 😳🙄). It would have been nice to have had help dealing with the situation but it was what it was.
Adding cold packs into the systems was suggested by several worm wranglers at the time but I didn’t have enough cold packs available to make a difference. Also the heat was so so so bad that I don’t honestly think it would have made a difference. The packs would have melted very quickly. The heat coming off was intense. For smaller bins with smaller surface area packs can help for sure. Patrick does that. And it’s a good trick to keep in mind for all of us when a surprise heat rise in any bin happens. It just wasn’t practical in my particular situation.
I am making good progress on sifting out buckets and buckets of castings and then incorporating the survivors and their bedding into existing bins. I will need to add in some new bins as well at some point and may revive Orange Julius! 😎
Thanks for your thoughts and good wishes. We march on! 🪱🤩
Sorry you’re going through this! Seems we both are dealing with heat spikes.. can be very frustrating trying to troubleshoot through these disasters.
Thanks Kyle. Yes there’s many factors to consider and figuring out what the main problem is and then fixing it can be a real challenge. I think mine is easier overall than your is as I simply (haha!) had to get the worms inside and cooled down fast. I have more to figure out regarding long term worm housing though 😳. Your pre-compost situation is still a mystery! 😬.
Great video sorry for your loss 🇳🇿❤️🙏🏼
Thank you ❤️. It was a hard lesson to learn that what I thought was a brilliant solution to my worm population expansion wasn’t such a good idea after all 😬. I’ve done much (much!) dumber things though 😂. The important thing now is to learn and adjust and carry on! Thanks for your support 🥰
Greetings Jayne, from Windermere, Florida zone 9b 🇺🇸
I don't remember having such a hot May and we've lived in South, Central and North Florida since 1979...(45 years) We've had days as high as 97°F!!! So far the worms 🪱 are hanging in there.
Take care of yourself and thanks for all of your help.
❤Peggy❤
We had a very cool winter this year and spring was lovely (you know, those 4 spring days we get 😂). Then the heat was on so fast and right to oven temps. 🥵. Jeepers! Well, it’s what it is and I’ll have to learn and adjust like everyone else. It’s just sad the poor worms had to pay the price 🥲. I’m glad yours are doing ok on your screened patio 👍. Keep a close eye on them 🪱.
You’re welcome for the assistance I was able to give you. I’m so happy for you to have monetized 🤗. Keep cranking out the great videos 🤩🪱
I have shallow tubs to raise my European night crawlers. They stack together nicely and are normally stack on the floor up to 3 high. I left 1 on top of my trailer tool box during a hot day. I almost cooked the worms on top of my trailer tool box. I took the tempreture of the other tubs and the difference was about 10 degrees less than the one tub on the tool box. I didn't even think that the trailer even though out of the Sun but the residual heat heated up the worm tub. Lesson learnt
Hi Tim! You got lucky! That’s great - and now you know to keep a better eye on the temps. Just like me 🙄.
On super hot days a 10 degree difference might be hard to get - and may not even be enough. As painful as the mass die off was I am glad to be all back inside. It’s more comfortable for me to work in as well! Long live AC! 🤣🤩🪱
I have had problems this year too ❤
Hi Jacque! Oh no! I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like to share with the Castings Crew what happened and what you did to address the situation? 🪱🪱
Do you add peat moss or coconut coir to your bedding? I find that heats up way more than cardboard and more prone to heating up if over feeding.
Hi Ann! No, I don’t use either in my worm bins at all. Never have. I do use dry peat for shipping worms but that’s it.
Thank you for mentioning that those types of bedding - as well as alfalfa- can cause sudden heat issues in bins. Forewarned is forearmed! 🪱
A bit late to comment this one, but I think the colour of the bins may have played a role, too. If just one side of a black bin catches rays of the sun, it's gonna heat up the whole bin, a lot more than, say, an orange bin. 😅 Perhaps you can make a non-airtight cardboard 'shield' (still allowing air to circulate around, between the cardboard and the bin) around your bins to lessen the impact of that.
Agree with the point about moisture. I don't remember the exact process, but as water evaporates, it makes thing cooler. Just think of sweat. It's not meant to annoy you when you're feeling hot, it's meant to prevent your body from overheating. 😅
Well, on the bright side, you've still got plenty other worms to help repopulate. It's sad, but it was an honest mistake. ;-)
Cheers! ✌
You’re not late at all! I appreciate you adding your thoughts to figuring out the disaster.
All the totes were in complete shade at all times. That doesn’t mean the color didn’t have an effect though. The black bin did seem the worse.
I actually have an update on the totes and what happened- I just haven’t filmed it yet. Spoiler alert - I now am leaning much more toward the moisture and feeding status as being the biggest factors.
I am going to do a few experiment this summer on ways to reduce heat transfer into the worm totes to see if I can find a solution that would allow me to have the worms outside longer and also ship worm safely during the hot months. Your shielding idea plays into that 😊. We will see! 🪱🪱
@@RockinWorms Looking forward to seeing what great contraption/solution you come up with! 🔥 😉 Cheers! (Lol thank God I didn't suggest implementing a water or liquid nitrogen cooling system 😆)
@@thomasbazin1529 The water cooling idea was suggested to me in the first hour or so of me discovering the situation, as I reached out immediately to a few worm wranglers for ideas. It’s definitely a possible solution but not one I could whip together quickly to deal with the problem ASAP. I’m good but not that good! 😂.
The possible answers I’m looking into are much lower tech 😝. Fingers crossed 🤞 🪱
The moisture level actually created the high temp be allowing the bioload to activate this happened from the increase in bedding mass and depth plus the right moisture level for the bacteria to boom(compost) which created the heat so best thing to do to solve problem is decrease depth and dry it out
Speaking from experience 😅
@@andrewsorchidbalcony7311 Thanks for sharing your gained wisdom! I’ll keep all of that in mind if I ever brave the outdoor worm bin idea again 🤷♂️😊. 🪱
Hi Andrew! I appreciate your insight! I had added moisture in an attempt to cool the trough down and may indeed have simply made matters even worse 😩.
I didn’t have nearly enough bins to thin the depth out but I could have done some bins at least if your idea had been known to me at the time. I do follow what you’re saying. I use the similar concept to release heat out of my pre-compost totes.
I hope to not have something like this happen again but it probably will at some time 😂🙄🪱
@@RockinWorms understandable I had this happen to me in a gallon bucket I was keeping worm in and the buckets weren’t even full but the biological activity was so high it cooked everything
@@andrewsorchidbalcony7311 The composting activity can certainly be an issue. Overfeeding in general can do that too. I try to remind worm wranglers that while it can be easy to confuse worm bins and pre-compost bins, they are NOT the same and can’t be interchanged. But sometimes it happens despite our best efforts or simply by accident. 😱😩.
What’s your ambient temperature for the worm buckets? 🪱
What is worm chow made with? Ingredients ?
Thank you for taking time. To answer and any info.
Hi Sue! Worm chow is a mix of dry ingredients, usually grain based. I have a video where I show how I make mine:
My Worm Chow Recipe for Happy Chonky Worms
th-cam.com/video/nDIjqXjgte0/w-d-xo.html
It’s important to note that my ‘recipe’ is more of a laundry list of possible ingredients. Using what you have on hand or can get cheap is perfectly fine and is encouraged! ❤️🪱
Oh the smell is horrible! I know another worm farmer who lost all worms also 😢
Hi Vee! It’s a double sided issue in my case. I didn’t have the horrible smell because the totes were outside - but it was them being outside that exposed them to the excessive heat!
I’m sure there are quite a few outside work wranglers that have had similar experiences 😩. I know of one in Texas that I actually talked to when this was happening and he said he had similar issues and decided to step back from worms for awhile. It can be devastating.
Thanks for stopping by! 😍🪱
@@RockinWorms it is devastating I’ve had things like this happen. But you acknowledge what happened and pick yourself up and learn from mistakes. I watch all your videos. I just don’t comment all the time.😊
@@TheGardenAndWormLady Thank you Vee! I appreciate you taking time to watch my content. You’re a busy lady too 🤩.
You’ve got that exactly! Bad things happen and we have to cry or shout or whatever to get the frustration out - and then buckle down and fix the problem and move forward.
Having all the support of this worm community is so wonderful 🥰🪱🤩