Swimmus wrote:

QUOTE:
EF will stop all out put below 40. I had ENC working all winter, in an outdoor bin, without temps dipping into the single digits. EF's dided, ENC kept on going.

ENC are the BEST all around worm in my experience. I am in central Virginia and have more success with ENC because they have a much wider window of operation. They can be a little too wet longer than EF. They can be a little colder and a little hotter than the EF.

They just aren't as horny!!;)

You have had a better experience with the ENC's than I have ever had with them. I haven't had problems with ENC's or EF's during the winter, the lowest temp. it gets here is around 17. When the temps. here get around 90 to 105 the ENC's die fast while the EF's still survive.

I have had nothing but success with encs. Better fishing worm. They compost good also. I have abused them also.

They r tuff.

I like a mixture of worms for my worm composting systems and it's something I recommend. EF's seem to be better at dealing with warm smelly waste, and are the first to move into new waste, while EH's like it wet and cold and hang around near the bottom of the container. If you're going to compost sucessfully all year round, you're going to get both sets of conditions fairly frequently.

I have only been herding since last June. for the first 2 to 3 months I saw no increase in my ENC population. I was getting worried. Then, around the beginning of fall, I started seeing cocoons (I initially thought they were seeds of some sort). Oh, happy day!!! I was concerned about the temp affecting them during the winter, so I moved them to my garage (to the horror of my wife!). But the temp still dropped in the core of the bin. Since the bins were home made 55 gal flow thru's, I couldn't exactly take them in the house (my wife wouldn't understand ...). To ensure they didn't freeze, I wrapped wire eave heaters around them (I have 2 bins, 1 for ENCs and 1 for EFs), and put it on a timer. It kept the core temp between 50F and 60F. My ENCs thrived ..... the population exploded! The lower temps seemed to send them into a breeding frenzy. I started with a pound of bed-runs for each type of worm, and have to estimate that I currently have around 10 to 12 pounds in my ENC bed and about 15+ pounds in my EF bed. I have to guess-imate these figures by the amount of food I feed them per week.

BTW - I live in western Michigan .... it was a cold winter by our standards, and it started a little early, too.

please excuse my ignorance, but what is EF's Thanks Gary K.

Gary, here are some common abbreviations for worm species:

EF = E. fetida
EH = E. hortensis
EE = E. eugeniae
PE = P. excavatus

Welcome to the forum.

Andrew