Only 21 worms (vermicomposting) left. Enough to rebuild?

[laohaire]

Just call me the Worm Butcher. I think they were doing fine until last week, I put the bin outside since we were having a fly problem. I was going to clean out the bin and seperate the worms from the castings and hose it out and give them some fresh bedding, but it took me about a week to get around to it. In the meantime, there was rain - and when I opened the bin, it was FILLED with water. Who knows how many worms drowned

So I spent a very icky morning sorting through some really wet worm poop and rotting food (yeah, I had too much in there, hence the flies) saving worms. Astoundingly, some survived. 21, to be exact.

I realize that I'm not going to instantly have a population of 500 again, but are 21 hermaphroditic worms enough to restart a population ... eventually?

Any guesses on how long it might take?

[goldfinches]

I bet you have more than 21, just hiding

I recently read that an initial group of 500 worms, (what I began with), would grow to 100,000 in one year if you just fed them without harvesting, (thus losing some in the harvest). So, I think your 21 will soon recover. If I knew how to mail them safely, I'd send you a few of mine to help...

[laohaire]

thanks anyway!

Well, I completely went through the bedding and put it all in the compost bin and put the survivors in the fresh bin. So I'm positive there's only 21 worms in the bin now!

While it's certainly possible that I missed some worms and put them in the compost bin, I bet I missed either none or very few. I know that sounds far-fetched but I picked up every bit of bedding just a bit at a time (like the size of a grape, seriously) and checked it by feel and sight (and visually it was very easy to see the red worms against the black poop and greenish sludge) before tossing it in the bin. I was so guilty for drowning them I was really committed to saving every one that I could!

Awesome to know that they are prolific like rabbits. I will be kind to them. Or, at least I'll try really hard

ETA: I realized I was unclear. I have two bins: a worm bin and a regular compost bin. I took the worm bedding out, sorted through it painstakingly, and then tossed it in the regular compost bin to "finish" (and help my current compost batch along).

[Greenmama2AJ]

Worms lay eggs. You know that saddle in the middle of them that looks like they've been chopped in half and restiched together? That slides off their body and forms an egg sack (which looks like a tiny onion - or fertiliser pellet) which will eventually produce between 12-20 young un's. When you go through the bedding next time you should look for those too.

So a population of 21 worms can multiple into many thousands if given a few good months.

I teach highschool enviro. science and we breed worms in class - my students have turned 10 or so worms into hundreds in just weeks. They each count their own pet worms before making mini Coke bottle worm farms. We have a comp to see who has the most sexy worms. If they can do it - you can, lol . Good luck!

[MidnightCommando]

Let us know if they rebuild. I somehow can't find a single worm in my bin right now and I don't know why they all died/dissapeared but I'm hoping there is some eggs in there that will hatch.

Maybe we should start a bad worm parents club

[AllyRae]

Yep, they'll regrow. We started out with 500 worms about a year ago and now we have thousands of them. Just keep them in a non-hot place and make sure they have some good bedding. Just remember to start off slow with the food, like you did at the beginning. 21 worms obviously won't be able to go through a pound or so a week until they start to multiply.