For example, if your worm bin internal temperature is at 60 degrees Fahrenheit your worms will be less active, hence eating less food. This is also a reason I do not recommend refrigerating red wiggler worms, African nightcrawlers, European nightcrawlers or Alabama Jumpers. As they become less active and eat less they begin to get thinner and leaner, which is not what fishermen and women want.

Moisture and pH levels will also affect your worms and how much they will eat.

Red wigglers can eat half their body weight per day in decomposed food scraps, shredded paper products… under the correct conditions. So one pound of red wiggler composting worms can eat half a pound of food a day under ideal conditions in a homeowner style worm bin. In a larger style bin, 32 square foot continuous flow system for instance, under ideal conditions; red wigglers have been known to consume more food per day.

Now your African nightcrawlers and Alabama Jumpers are probably your most ferocious eaters. The ones on our farm indoors are fed daily under ideal conditions. Now I do not feed these guys food scraps but have shifted to Purina Worm Chow as their main diet. I do not have to run out constantly to pick up scraps and manure from local vendors some of which is smells pretty bad. African nightcrawlers are not as big a composting worm as the red wiggler on food scraps; however are excellent manure worm. I do not recommend chicken manure, however rabbit manure is superb as it does not require the process of heating. Horse or cow manure is also excellent however be sure the manure has been heated prior and that the animals have not been on de-wormer.

Now grain mix differs from food scraps as you do not want to feed your worms ½ a pound of Worm Chow per one pound of worms. You simply sprinkle on the surface area and do not mix in or the bin will become sour and begin to kill off your worms. Not only do the African nightcrawlers devour the chow, but damp shredded newspaper which we keep on the surface area and replace as needed. This ends up turning into the dark, rich worm castings known as “Black Gold”.

European nightcrawlers one of the favorite worms by those that fish, are also another good manure worm and are not as great on food scraps as the red wiggler. They also do not have the ferocious appetite as the African nightcrawler. I feed them with the grain mix by Purina, however anywhere from once every day or two while maintaining less feed in each bin compared to the African nightcrawler. The European nightcrawler bin is probably the easiest to sour by adding too much food. Do not expect these worms to eat as much, however they are extremely prolific and do produce a nice worm castings.

This should give you a good basis as where to begin feeding your worms, however keep in mind the conditions of your worm bin due play a large role in how much to feed your worms.

First, if I followed what numerous other sites state (which I did try originally) I would end up with nothing but a regular compost bin since my worms would be dead and decomposing.

Most sites state to feed your worms one pound of food per one pound of worms a day. If you took a bin with 2,000 red wrigglers, roughly 2 plus pounds, you would need to add a ten bag pound and a 5 pound bag of potatoes weekly. You would need to be a magician to add this weekly

I took some time to do a comparison, weighing the food I was adding each week and watching to see what happened. One bin I placed a pound of food per pound of worms, the other, half a pound of food per one pound of worms. I fed both bins with the same food, simply cutting it in half for the second bin.

The results were that a pound of food per pound of worms in a basic worm bin is too much as it begun to make the worms try and escape from an uncovered bin with a light over the top, hence telling me something was definitely wrong. The bin began to get soggy and loads of mites appeared, even though the bin was uncovered. I found very few cocoons and could not find any hatchlings.

The bin with only half a pound of feed per pound of worms is excelling! In fact it is loaded with cocoons, new hatchlings and the larger worms look real healthy!

When raising worms feed half a pound of food scraps per one pound of worms daily. Of course this will vary for different types of worms as one pound of European Nightcrawlers equals approximately 300 – 400 worms while a pound of red wrigglers would be approximately 800 – 1000 worms. This does not mean you need to feed your worms daily, as you can accumulate food scraps and add three to three and a half pounds once a week to one pound of worms.

A good signal that either your worm composting setup is either too wet or has too much food is a large population of mites. A few mites are not usually harmful; however an explosive population means you need to correct your bin. To rectify the situation, try adding dry newspaper and/or cardboard and mixing some in. Take additional and place on top of the composting bin.

Remember as your vermiculture population grows, you will see that more and more food will be required in small increments.

I have read where numerous people run their worm bin food through a food processor prior to adding to their worm bin hence making a soupy mix. Do not even waste your time! Worms have been around for millions of years and God does not use a giant food processor to feed his worms in the wild

You can add food scraps to the freezer and freeze prior to adding to your worm composting bin. Freezing the food actually modifies the molecular structure hence allowing your scraps to break down faster in your worm bin. You will notice once thawed out prior to adding to your worm bin that some, especially items like lettuce will already be breaking down and becoming slimy. This allows bacteria growth faster, hence delivering food to your worms that much sooner. I personally use this method when first starting a worm bin. Once you have been adding food to the worm bin for a while, you should be able to just throw scraps into the bin directly as organic matter you have been adding should be in various stages of decomposition.

Yes, red worms love coffee grinds, however do not add too much. Coffee grinds along with tea bags do create heat as they decompose. The other setback is that they are very acidic, hence why I use some around the azalea bushes each year as they love an acid based soil! If you add too much to your worm composting bin, you can kill off your worms.

If your acid level becomes too high, how do you bring it back to the correct PH level of 6 to 7? If your acid level begins to get too high, you need to get it back as soon as possible.

I have read where many folks are using ground up agricultural lime by sprinkling on top of their bins. This can create a major kill off as when worms get into the dry lime; it dries them out, hence killing them. Here is a little trick I have used, if done in moderation.

Mix about 1 teaspoon of ground agricultural lime to a quart of water and shake well. Now use a mister to apply mix over the top surface of your wet bedding and keep wet by adding a mist of plain water as needed. I do not recommend over doing this process as there is another way to help maintain PH balance within your red worm bin.

Egg shells added to your worm composting bin can help maintain your PH but only if done correctly. Simply throwing whole egg shells or crushed egg shells will not do the trick. According to test ran at Clemson University a while back, finely ground egg shells actually help maintain a PH level within soil. By adding one or two ground egg shells every 10-14 days will help maintain a proper PH.

Items to ovoid feeding your red worms include meats, dairy products, oily food scraps, human or pet waste.

In moderation coffee grinds, tea bags, starchy foods such as bread, rice… ground egg shells.

Organic matter that can smell when added to your bin, so you may wish to avoid all together or add very little include broccoli, onions, garlic.

Things your red worms will love to vegetables, shredded newspaper, brown cardboard, melon rinds… aged animal manure (already heated and in moderation, use only in outside bins).

If using manure, be very careful of the heat generated but any medicines that the animals creating the manure are on can kill off worms, including de-worming meds.

Keep away from chicken mash and such as these can and will leave small deposits of salt that will end up killing your red worms in time.

Bruce