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Buying composting worms
The good folks discussed above are certainly not the only high quality suppliers but my job is to keep things simple and
successful for you.
I really do think you should buy your worms locally, but if you want to order your worms with your WormGin™ that's great.
Here are the buttons for adding to your PayPal cart (or go to the STORE, then the worms section):
Red Wigglers - Half Pound (with any WormGin™) - $15.00
Red Wigglers - One Pound (with any WormGin™) - $25.00
Your order will ship the following Monday unless you request otherwise.
Just for the record, if you want to go gather local nightcrawlers - or any worm other than Eisenia Fetida
(Red Wigglers) - STOP! They will NOT
work in ANY worm bin. Nightcrawlers in America are NOT composting worms. Just . . . NO, ok?
One pound of Red Wiggler worms is said to be about 1000 individuals. I have not verified this number, but in any
case it is the optimum weight of worms to handle the job of getting your WormGin™ well
established. You can also go with half a pound to save cash. Even a quarter pound will work, but of
course it will take longer to get the bin fully cranked up. Starting with more than a pound usually but not always
will get your worm bin up to speed sooner than just a pound. Starting with more than 4 pounds is a bad idea.
All my advice here is of course based on maximizing my customer's success. The business of selling
composting worms on the web is not easy to figure out. If there were a lot of confirmed high quality
suppliers, my sense of fairness would have me provide a list of them. There may be such a list, but
not one I can be confident in. It's a shame, because ideally, you would buy from a nearby supplier
and lower your shipping cost and the stress on your new worm heroes.
Feel free to google "buy red wigglers" and
check out the options.
Uncle Jim's Worm farm
will pop to the top of the
list, and I have no reason to expect you would not be happy with your purchase there. I'm
looking to my customers to get confirmation that Uncle Jim's is 100% good to go as your
worm supplier.
From what I can tell, there are only a small handful of actual high-volume worm growers who actually sell directly.
I am not convinced there are more than 3 high volume, internet-friendly wholesalers in the USA.
You will find many sites that will sell you worms, but most of them are having your order drop-shipped
from their wholesaler. There's nothing wrong with that, but it sure makes it hard to tell who
the good wholesalers are and which give rise to unsatisfied customers - unfortunately not rare at all from my observation.
One of my missions as the Wormgineer is to get a better handle on worm suppliers for my customers. Unfortunately,
I've never purchased worms over the internet: I got some from Walter at
wegotworms4u.com
and never needed more.
Apparently all the big wholesale suppliers use mechanical separators to weigh out portions of worms for shipment. I can see
why they have to do it that way, but I would rather see them just scoop out a chunk of active worm bed,
correct for correct population density, and ship it. No one does it that way, but I can dream, lol.
"Bed-run" worms means different things on different web sites. To me, it should mean worms of all sizes,
which is a good thing because if you get an actual pound of worms, you have more individuals,
and the little ones will get big soon enough, voraciously making vermicompost as they grow.
Ideally, IMO what you want is a chunk of worm bed, instead of separating worms from their
bedding and sorting them to size. In my opinion getting large individuals is no big advantage when they've been
totally stressed out.
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Species of composting worms, and a bug
There are actually three species of worms that could possibly be included in any given order of Eisenia Fetida.
Eisenia Andrei is a very close "cousin" and they are hard to tell apart. Not many people worry about the difference.
I do not know of a supplier prepared to
sell you a pound of pure Eisenia Andrei specimens. It doesn't really matter: while
they do not interbreed and a single species is generally preferred for vermicomposting,
for all our practical purposes they can basically be treated as all the same.
All suppliers seem convinced that their Red Wigglers are 100% E. fetida, and for all I know they could all be correct.
But if the other species have found their way into their systems, there is a good chance no one would realize it.
The different species do have their differences, but for the beginner it is not worth worrying about. Just go with
Eisenia Fetida, "Red Wigglers".
The basic information below is mainly from Wikipedia, but also from my own understanding and research, and to be honest
probably none of it is actually important to a typical customer. But I sorted this all out, so why not share?
E. Fetida (Red Wigglers) is the species scientists usually cite,
so for serious studies I suppose they must do the examination necessary to
tell them apart. Laymen often try to tell them apart by the stripes, but I believe scientists do a chemical
analysis. From my research, Eisenia Andrei is slightly darker in color with less pronounced stripes in terms of light/dark
contrast, but each segment is lightly defined by a yellow band, thus it is often called the "tiger worm".
In practice it is quite difficult to tell them apart. Individual differences can overwhelm the differences between species.
Here is a great photo at Gardenweb.com's
forums (new window: wait for it to load, scroll down).
L. rubellus is a little easier to identify, as it is iridescent dorsally
(along the back) and has a yellowish ventral (bottom) side; its common name is "Red Earthworm" (not "redworm").
The other species that are widely used for vermicomposting are the "European Nightcrawler" and the "African Nightcrawler".
They are both much longer and thicker, Euros are up to 8 inches long compared to 5 inches for a huge Red Wiggler. The
African worms are used in the tropics, and the European ones in Europe. Hey that actually makes sense.
The problem with 'common names' is that they are not always common. Different people call different things by the
same name, and the same thing by different names. So we turn to science to identify the separate species, and I am supplying what I believe to be
the "most common" common name for each.
All composting worms are in the same Family, Lumbricidae (except African Nightcrawlers)
These are terrestrial, segmented worms with cocoon-producing
collars and 4 pairs of tiny "bristles" per segment. We are interested in only a few of the over 670 species in this family.
Kingdom: Animalia
- Animals
Phylum: Annelida
- Segmented Worms
- annelus="little ring"
Class: Clitellata
- Collared Worms
- clitellum ~ "collar": The cocoon-producing feature, a swelling about one-third of the way down the Earthworm. Only present on adult specimens.
- Worms and Leeches - including aquatic ones - do not have parapodium, the fan-like structures on Polychaeta marine worms.
Sub-Class: Oligochaeta
- Terrestrial and Freshwater Worms - not Leeches
- These worms usually have few setae (chaetae) or "bristles", and lack parapodium (paired
lateral outgrowths from the body).
Order: Haplotaxida
- Worms!
- One of Two Orders under Sub-Class Oligochaeta
- 4 pairs of setae per segment
- The other order, Lumbriculida, contains microdriles - small aquatic worms.
Suborder: Lumbricina
- Earthworms!
Family: Lumbricidae
- Almost all European Earthworms
- One of about 16 Families of Earthworms, other Families cover other regions of the globe or occupy highly specialized niches.
- For North America, the only species mentioned here that is potentially an invasive species is L. Rubellus
- African Nightcrawlers are in Family Eudrilidae: Eudrilus eugeniae
- Lumbricidae is a Family of 42 Genera and over 670 (sub-)species
- Taxonomic Characteristics are highly technical
- See page 37 of this 77-Page List cited by Wikipedia Lumbricidae List, 505 KB pdf
- The Family of Lumbricidae (Earthworms) should not be confused with the Order Lumbriculida (small aquatic worms)
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Eisenia fetida
"Red Wiggler" or "Compost Worm" or "Brandling Worm"
Eisenia Andrei
"Tiger worm" or "Compost Worm"
Genus: Eisenia
- Note the existence of a brown algae of the same (Botanical nomenclature) genus name!
- Taxonomic Characteristics are highly technical
Species: E. andreii
- One of 33 Species of the Genera Eisenia
- A very close relative of E. fetida: an apparent example of sympatric speciation.
- Color: Deep red or purple with each segment lightly defined by a yellow band.
- Clitellum: Segments 26 - 32
Lumbricus Rubellus
"Red Earthworm"
Genus: Lumbricus
- Taxonomic Characteristics are highly technical
Species: L. rubellus
- One of 13 Species of the Genera Lumbricus
- Usually reddish brown or reddish violet, iridescent dorsally, and pale yellow ventrally.
- They are usually about 25–105 mm in length, and have around 95-120 segments.
- Not a true composting worm (it burrows), not native to America and potentially an invasive species.
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Eisenia Hortensis
"European Nightcrawler"
Genus: Eisenia
- Note the existence of a brown algae of the same (Botanical nomenclature) genus name!
- Taxonomic Characteristics are highly technical
Species: E. hortensis
- One of 33 Species of the Genera Eisenia
- Mainly greyish, with a pinkish color on the front end of the body. The tip of the tail is cream or pale yellow.
- Noticeably larger than Red Wigglers, a better bait worm if angling for other than small trout.
- A good composting worm, but behave differently than Red Wigglers.
Mycobacterium vaccae
"Soil Germ"
The WormGin™ is an awesome way to connect with nature.
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Turn your food waste into Nature's Favorite Plant Food
The Clean, Green Machine: Garbage Disposal the Natural Way
The WormGin™: You'll love it and your worms will love it
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