No worms

[jhook1997]

i have had three nice big compost bins going for about four years now. I have a good balance of materials......veggie and fruit scrape, newspaper, leaves, pulled up plants, grass clippings, decomposed wood shavings and chicken manure. Problem is....no worms! I'm considering buying some to help speed things up. Thoughts? How many do I order? From where?

 

[so lucky]

Do you get worms that come up on the sidewalk when it rains? Sometimes our driveway and sidewalks look like a horror movie, with all the worms that come up. You could collect them, and rehome them.
They say that the red wrigglers that you buy in the bait store are not winter hardy, so I think using native worms would be better.
Another thought, if the compost is already done, maybe the worms don't have that much to eat. They eat the stuff before it is composted. You can attract some by putting a piece of wet cardboard down on bare ground or concrete, in warm weather.

 

[baymule]

If your compost is hot, that would keep them away.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i know when i've cleaned out a coop and thrown the shavings/manure in the garden i usually find the worms under the pile and not mixed into it for some time. once i till this into the garden i start to see the worms happily munching away on the small clumps mixed into the soil.

 

[canesisters]

Someone told me this once ... I tried it ... I have LOTS of worms... but I have no idea if it worked.

Take a bag of old dog food (I used chick starter)
Dig to the bottom of your compost pile
Dump the food and wet it
Cover it back up and wait a while

Might be along the same lines of swing a dead chicken clockwise around you head 3 times and your cold will be gone within a week... or do nothing and it will be gone in 7 days..

 

[jhook1997]

Do you get worms that come up on the sidewalk when it rains? Sometimes our driveway and sidewalks look like a horror movie, with all the worms that come up. You could collect them, and rehome them.
They say that the red wrigglers that you buy in the bait store are not winter hardy, so I think using native worms would be better.
Another thought, if the compost is already done, maybe the worms don't have that much to eat. They eat the stuff before it is composted. You can attract some by putting a piece of wet cardboard down on bare ground or concrete, in warm weather.

I have three bins so there is always some compost that is "not done" I have collected and brought them from other places in my yard after rain but there still never seems to be many in the compost or my garden.

 

[jhook1997]

i know when i've cleaned out a coop and thrown the shavings/manure in the garden i usually find the worms under the pile and not mixed into it for some time. once i till this into the garden i start to see the worms happily munching away on the small clumps mixed into the soil.

Getting ready to clean the coop next week so hopefully this will help.

 

[jhook1997]

Someone told me this once ... I tried it ... I have LOTS of worms... but I have no idea if it worked.

Take a bag of old dog food (I used chick starter)
Dig to the bottom of your compost pile
Dump the food and wet it
Cover it back up and wait a while

Might be along the same lines of swing a dead chicken clockwise around you head 3 times and your cold will be gone within a week... or do nothing and it will be gone in 7 days..

Worth a try....thanks

 

[digitS']

I managed to bring a lot of red worms to my two-part compost bin by hauling in a pickup load of cow manure.

The manure was aged but right out of a corral.

The worms would "migrate" fairly well from one side of the bin to the other. By May, the material from the previous year would be crawling with worms, at least in part of it. They would have another 12 months to travel on through and find themselves, next door, in that year's supply of compostables.

Steve

 

[baymule]

Thanks to @canesisters now I know what to do with dead chickens.