Worm farm bedding has become very, very wet and smelly??

by Katarina
(South Africa)

Quoting Katarina


> Hello Stephan,
>
> I hope you are well.
>
> I seem to be having a small problem with my worm farm... in the last week it
> has become very very wet (doesn't seem to be moving the water through as
> well as it was doing) and now we have maggots which I know I are not a good
> sign.
>
> Could you give me any advice on how to dry it out and get rid of the
> maggots?
>
> It was all going so well until now :(
>
>
> Thanks so much!!
>
> Katarina
>



Hello Katarina,

it is nice to hear from you but I am sorry about your worm farm problems.
I am almost certain that your worm farm is infested with soldier fly maggots.

Those are initially light grey in color and turn later into a darker color.

They are usually found close to the surface and although they thrive on recycling organic waste similar to the worms, the worms dislike them and usually avoid contact with them. The worms usually crawl either into the lower parts of their worm farm bedding or even out of the worm farm if there are to many soldier fly maggots.

You should remove the maggots wearing a rubber glove and either place them into a compost heap or in a shallow tray where you can expose them to the sun.
Once they are dead you can feed them to your worms.

Once the maggots have been removed see check if you still can find worms inside the bedding.If there are still worms start drying the bedding.

In order to dry out your worm farm bedding, remove it from your worm farm and form a 3 or 4 piles with the contents and let them stand in the sun and wind for some time till the bedding has lost lots of its moisture. But remember it should still contain a little water as the worms need it to be able to breath.

Kind regards

Stephan Kloppert
Author of
"How to start a profitable worm business on a shoestring budget"



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Mar 11, 2015
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starstarstarstarstar 		Removing maggots from my worm farm
by: Katarina

Thanks so much for the guidance Stephan - yes that is exactly what I think they are.

I will get on the recovery process of my worm farm asap. There are still plenty of worms in the bin too, so will get rid of the maggots to give them more space.

Cheers!
Katarina

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