06/11/2026
Why do worms run away from home?
I got some worms... from Walmart in the red wigglers containers in the fishing section, as was suggested by someone. I'm in the midst of making the actual bin (I know I'm doing this a little backwards, but the tldr is that there are reasons). I had intended to get the bin done within the first couple of days, but things happened and time crunch and emergency roofing and I'm 1 day from being able to finish the bin. So... they've been chilling in their hotel rooms in the interim, which has been about two weeks.
One hotel room is the cup they came in. Not ideal, but I figured they survive in there for who knows how long in the store, they should be ok with some tending. The other hotel room is a bucket-like container with a lid that originally housed pretzel sticks. I started the pretzel stick room with the original bedding mixed with some "spent" (it was actually just used and I didn't feel like dealing with the roots) special potting spoil my husband makes me out of coco coir, perlite, worm castings, and a few other ingredients. I think there was some plant matter and a few other things mixed in as well, but it was mostly the dirt. I've been trying to keep the containers at the right moisture level. The big one needs to be wet on occasion and the little one needs dirt added on occasion as it gets wet and they eat everything down. I've added a few food scraps (trimmings from my tomato plants and I think maybe some onion peels, and other trimmings), used coffee grounds, used tea leaves, and egg shells. They seemed pretty happy overall, which I was happy about since it was CERTAINLY not an ideal living situation.
HOWEVER- this morning my husband stepped on two of them. The containers are sitting on the counter in my kitchen and they made it all the way to the floor and partially across the room. I've no clue how many ran away or from which container. I've since cut holes in the top of the bigger lid and made sure they were both on tighter. I honestly hadn't looked inside the containers for a few days because these have been really heavy work days for me. My husband thinks they came out of the bigger container for whatever reason and threw the ones he could back in. Some had dried out and didn't survive. We've had worms last so VERY long in just the worm casting bag they came in (the bags of castings we buy for the potting soil) and my husband had looked it up and read that they can live indefinitely in just the castings (I'm suspicious of that claim, but they've lived months in the bag, so I know it's a long time)- so I wasn't to worried about leaving them in short term. Given that I'm trying to keep the moisture levels even and they seemed happy until now, does anyone have any suggestions on why they'd have a mass exodus (at least 4 worms- I'm not sure if more ran away and we didn't notice) suddenly? I thought maybe the small cup had too many worms, but I don't know.
I added a "bunch" of coffee grounds, tea leaves, egg shells, and clippings to the top (there's not a lot of room, so it's just as much as I could reasonably fit) after the prison escape this morning, but I'll add some pictures.
