Uncle Jim's Worm Farm 100 Count Super Red European Nightcrawlers for Composting and Garden Soil Aeration | Large Nightcrawlers Improve Soil Structure and Quality for Healthier Gardens

**One Year Update*** I know have full herd of ENC’s! I’ve been following a strict breeding cycle with these guys for the past year. I started with about 25 adults (the rest went into the kids bins) and now have well over 8lbs. Those do not include the hatch bins or the ones I’ve sold. There are also tons of them in the outdoor composter, sadly the blues couldn’t survive our super cold winter. For outside I dug an 18” deep hole about 2” smaller around than my compost bin. I filled the bottom with shredded cardboard, composted horse manure and other bedding materials. I then layered the bin with browns and greens at a 80:20 ratio so it wouldn’t heat up. When the temps were dropping below freezing I added a bunch of straw around the bin to keep in as much heat as possible. After a -24* cold snap I feared they all died, but wasn’t too worried since I had my little colony going indoors. I decided to check on them when we hit a high of 38*F and sure enough they were moving around, albeit a bit slow. When I go fishing I pull from outside so as not to use up my selling stock. I currently have 1 breeding bin and 13 grow out trays along with my main mother bin with mixed ages. I’m now in the process of expanding so I’ll be able to meet a couple store quotas to sell them as bait and also reptile food. This past year I’ve sold several starters to people in the area (I was already selling pure red wigglers) and was able to sell bait cups to individuals and one sporting good store for the first couple months of the fishing season before selling out. I’m back to being able to sell to individuals, but cannot keep up with the 50 cup minimum per month required by the store. Next year that won’t be a problem. All this from 25 or so adults! All but one of the kids still have their worms and they now live in larger bins. The kids are constantly flagging me down to tell about fishing trips they took and how many fish they caught using their own worms! They also love to feed them and play with them. It’s so great to see the kids taking care of their little pets and getting so much joy from them when they out fish mom, dad and sometimes a grandma or grandpa in the mix! Thanks Jim’s for the fantastic worms and amazing service. Original-Ordered these to teach kiddos how to raise compost and fishing worms. They will each get a shoe box with 2 empty bins to stack as they grow and to collect finished compost. These are very temporary bins to get them started. Most of the kids like to fish so I thought these would be ideal for those kids and save money. The first shipment smelled a little odd and there were 50ish worms in the bag, the soil was a touch wet too. The seller was great and sent a new one right away. There are over 150 in this bag and the peat moss was totally bone dry. The worms that went in several days ago have doubled in size now that they are hydrated, so don’t stress too much if they look a little thin. Most were large enough to fish with now. I did take 3 of them out on a test fishing trip and each of them caught a fish. The Canadian night crawler wasn’t touched. Also took out a few red wigglers, all of those got stolen off the hooks since they are so small and fragile. I like that a worm threader can go into the Euros to help keep them on the hook, even then the little fish will try to pull them off so watch that line or bobber! I’m so glad I got these guys. I plan to keep 15 of them to start my own full bin, although it’ll be tough not to grab a few when I go fishing, but I’d like a full bin before I do so I’ll refrain for now. Great service and helpful when I had a couple questions. —the only bugs that came with these were two little meal worm that clung to the inside of the second bag, they went into our outdoor compost pile so they can work until it freezes, no flies and so far I haven’t seen any mites, but the bin will eventually get them as my other bins have them and they are all kept near each other. Mites are good for your worm bin as long as they don’t overpopulate it. Not sure about the flies some have mentioned, I didn’t have anything like that. If you order these when it’s hot outside and you won’t be home when they are delivered it’s not a bad idea to leave a cooler with an ice pack inside. Put a note to the postal worker requesting they put the package inside the cooler. That way the worms won’t cook while they wait for you to get home. If the bottom spout is left off they will have plenty of air. Update 10/12/22 While feeding the Euros last week I found a huge Indian Blue worm at the top. I figured this was a single hitchhiker from Jim’s and tossed it into the compost. Well last night when I went to feed them I found three more. Today I after sifting the bin I found over 80 blue worms! To avoid an infestation I picked out the adult Euros, rinsed them off to make sure there were no cocoons stuck to them and tossed everything I’m not 100% sure is a Euro (ENC) into the outdoor composter. These worms are being raised as fishing worms, blues are too fragile to fish with. I originally planned to keep the cocoons for future breeding and the worms were going to the kids. The cleanup took all day (still need to wash everything) so no time to set up the kid bins for tomorrow. I don’t want to give the kids blues as they all want to use them for fishing anyway, so even if there was time there aren’t enough worms to set the kids up and keep enough to sell next spring in order to offset some of the cost. Blues reproduce much faster than ENC’s and can take over a bin. If I cannot get a pure replacement the kids will have to wait a few months until I can breed more. I also had 3 cocoon bins that ended up going into the outside composer. When I checked on some of the hatchlings many of them moved like blues so I know there are probably hundreds of them on the way. Some moved slower, like ENC’s, but it’s impossible to say for sure what is what when they are so tiny. I counted out well over 500 cocoons and that was only 1/2 way through. In a few months time I would have had 1,000 ENC’s if they had been pure. I’ve had blues before and, even though they are great composers, they end up in my other worm bins and when we have really bad thunderstorms they end up on the walls and ceiling. This isn’t an issue if you just want to compost and don’t have thunderstorms for a month straight at end of summer/early fall. It’s a big problem when you do and are breeding to sale to bait shops. Securing the bin so they can’t get out is a hassle and just not worth the effort to me since I have plenty of other worms. Now here’s hoping they didn’t get into any of my other worm bins. I also breed other worm species for fishing/composting. I did a quick sweep through other bins and haven’t seen any live blues, I did find one dried up on the floor about a foot from one of the red bins. I contacted the company and all they said is that they sent ENC’s, not a mix of worms. My response was to send them a photo with the blues like I posted here. We will see what happens, but nothing can fix this at this point. So much time and money has been spent on this. I kept the cocoons in special bedding and on heat mats. This is a very very sad day :( I have lost so much time and money on these worms, it’s sickening to me and almost brings me to tears. It was so hard to dump all those worms outside since most will probably die over winter. Now to start over with the 50-something true ENC’s I have left. :( Last Update; Seller got back to me today and sent a refund. They assured me this hasn’t happened before and worms are kept separate. I do plan to use the refund to order another batch. The juveniles in that batch will be kept separate to be sure they are what they say they are. Still very sad but glad they totally stand behind their worms.

Worms came dead. The bag had a funny odor and after 2 days here the worms are turning Grey and mould is growing on top of them

Fast shipping, good instructions, lots of healthy worms that fattened up quickly with food and hydration. No smell at all. I've found they really like grits sprinkled into the chopped vegetation and finely crushed egg shells from my kitchen. My paper shredder provides plenty of cover to keep the soil from drying out. I scoop out a few tablespoons of soil every time I feed and add small amounts to my potted plants. The plants are loving the additional nutrients and are growing well.

I have clay soil in my yard and gardens. The worms that I do have are skinnier than the ones at my previous house. (we went from sandy soil to clay) My plan is to treat the soil and convert it from hard or mushy to soil that drains better and is better for my lawn and plants. One part of this plan involves worms. Worms dig and eat and leave worm castings behind. They compost any organic material they can find and if conditions are right, they multiply. It has come to my attention that if you have the right soil conditions, you will have worms. If you do not have enough worms and you add them, they may not thrive. For this reason, I got an auger style drill about 2" in diameter that is used for bulb planting or adding organic material to the yard. I have been drilling holes up to a foot deep and putting compost, rotted wood chips, rotted hay and grass clippings in the holes. I am hoping that 4 of these holes around the site where I put the worms is enough to feed them for a while and get some activity going in my soil. I will continue to keep adding organic material like this though because they need to keep eating. They need the soil to remain moist and they need food. 100 worms could be 200 worms in 90 days if the conditions are right. So adding worms is good but only if they have something to eat. The worms I received were all alive. I didn't count them but there were a lot of worms in various sizes. I know they were all alive because I dumped them in a spot on the lawn and watered that spot. After a day there were no worms visible on the mound. I hope the robins didn't get too many though and they could have cleaned up any worms that didn't dig into the lawn.

Make sure to read the instructions, especially about putting a light above the worms if they're trying to crawl out. Excellent quality. Mine are thriving.