avidwormer
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A Juvenile Earthworm
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Re:first harvest/new bin - 2008/06/10 07:06
Hello Chana,
I see that this question has been floating around here with no answers for a while. I'll try to offer some thoughts, though I'm really not knowledgeable enough to provide an answer to you question. Hopefully my response will take your question back to the top and stimulate some more educated responses.
From what I have read, the worms simply go at it as often as they can. This would suggest that the absence of cocoons flags some problem in the bin. This could be any number of things from the worms trying to adapt to a change in their environment to the possibility that some of those wood chips contain cedar or other chemicals that aren't good for the worms.
There is, however, a paradoxical possibility as well. According to some sources a certain level of instability (be it temperature fluctuations, food supply etc.) can encourage rapid breeding as the worms try to ensure the continuation of their species. Some contributors on this site have noted higher yields, for instance, when the worms are placed outdoors in the summer (where temps alternate much more frequently than indoor temperatures). Perhaps it's possible, then, that your worms are simply very happy in their new bin and don't feel much urgency to reproduce.
I have also noticed differences in cocoon production. I have about 30 small bins in operation. I try to monitor the bins equally, though it's nearly impossible to maintain the same moisture, temperature, PH conditions in all of my bins at once. And when I divided up the older bins, it was very clear to me that some bins had lots of cocoons while others had relatively few. Given that these bins all started with about the same numbers of worms (weight wise), it's clear that something is affecting the rate of reproduction, though I'm not really sure what that something is.
Perhaps others may have some further insights to add here.
Avidwormer |
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