Breeder Bin Managing to Success - Module 4: Breeder Cycle Length 21 Days or ??!

[@LarryWileyWormFarm-ey8lp]

Jayne i e joy your videos more than most. Cannot get over your worms in your living room. I am a country boy married to a city girl. It has taken her 6 months to get over my worms in the back room.

[@RockinWorms]

Hi Larry! Thanks! I’m glad you’re enjoying them ❤️. My hubby is a city boy who wanted to be country. I’m technically suburb but on the rural farm side of town. We’re both thrilled to be in the farm area now with our land. He’s used to my crazy new interests and hobbies popping up every 3-5 years. the living room is actually working out quite well. It helps that it’s a big house and it’s just the 2 of us now with little family around. No one to judge me! 🤣🪱❤️. Your girl sounds like a keeper ❤️❤️

[@LarryWileyWormFarm-ey8lp]

I have kept her 54 years. My worms are the den on the back of our house.

[@RockinWorms]

@@LarryWileyWormFarm-ey8lp Awww! You’re still newlyweds! Hubby and I are still figuring out if we like each other - at 27 years of marriage ❤️

[@peggyhelblingsgardenwhatyo7920]

Good morning, Jayne, from Windermere, Florida zone and ❤ You always have info packed videos 👍🪱👍 Look at those Wisps 💗 Take care ❤Peggy❤

[@RockinWorms]

Thanks Peggy! 🪱❤️🪱

[@DougMcHone]

First glance I thought your shirt said you were done pooping. LOL

[@RockinWorms]

@@DougMcHone Haha! My daughter did get me a t-shirt that says ‘I pooped today!’ So you weren’t far off at all 🤣🤩🪱

[@leobaltz2057]

Love those beautiful yellow tails! Man your worms are so fat and healthy. I’ve got to split my bins and give them more room. It’s amazing how fast they will multiply! Great info Jayne!

[@RockinWorms]

Thanks Leo! You’re always a nice boost to my day ❤️. Giving them more room to grow turns out to be very important! I wish I had knew that several months ago 😫. Now I know and so do you and everyone one else that stops by 🪱❤️

[@cherylhowker1792]

I know at one point captain Matt was doing 14 days and since moved to 21 days . I don’t know why. Will continue watching

[@RockinWorms]

I don’t think I caught that he was doing 14 days for a worm cycle at any point but it’s certainly possible. Maybe it was for Indian blues?

[@cherylhowker1792]

@@RockinWorms it was when he was doing breeder buckets not in the trays.

[@RockinWorms]

@@cherylhowker1792 Ah. I did watch several of those. Still don’t remember he was using 14 day breeder cycles but those were definitely red wiggler worms. It add a lot more resets to shorten the cycle that much. Less dealing with wisps though. It’s always trade offs 🙄❤️🪱

[@cherylhowker1792]

@@RockinWorms he was after the casting at that point I believe but changed to moter trays and now does 21 days with 500 worms. In 5gals of bedding I believe….

[@RockinWorms]

@@cherylhowker1792 it makes sense if he was after castings and cocoons but wanted almost zero chance to have hatchlings. He was the Rockwood shifter to separate the cocoons out. That’s helps a lot! A bit out of my budget 😳🙄😆

[@kenrundle1735]

Another great video! Do you have a teacher background? You do such a wonderful job of explaining all the details. Keep up the great work!

[@RockinWorms]

Hi Ken! My background is (don’t hate me for this!) corporate Human Resources. That’s what my degrees are in as well as my professional career a zillion years ago. I used to do recruitment presentations 4 nights a week for months on end at one point. Of course those were much more formal and structured than my KZbin attempts 😆. I kinda like having this be a conversation between friends! Thanks for the kind words! 🤗❤️🪱

[@karischmoyer7276]

Just pulled my 1st breeders and left cocoons in bin. Much easier than picking cocoons. Thanks!😊

[@RockinWorms]

@@karischmoyer7276 Hi Kari! Congratulations! 1st breeder bin is a huge step 🤩. Yes picking breeder out vs cocoons is MUCH easier - and effective. There’s no way that every cocoon will be collected. I’m pretty good at it (🙄) but I’ll miss some too 😝. Now all you have to do is wait for most of the cocoons to disgorge their wisps 😍. Then it’ll be light feeding for the first several weeks as the wisps grow. 😎🪱

[@rico99586]

HI Jayne. Thanks for another good vid. I've thought the same thing. It seems other things would have a bearing also on the "21 day" cycle too, like for example temperatures etc. I raise ENC and crickets too, and I have noticed the crickets cycle varies sometimes a few days from the accepted norm. As for them not eating the paper this time, I think they could read the latest prices on food on your paper, and it just ruined their appetite.😃

[@RockinWorms]

🤣🤣 ! They wouldn’t be the only ones put off their dinner a bit by food prices! Yikes! A few already aware asking about temperature effects. I don’t know at all on that but since many animals are effected by ambient temps, it’s a good factor to consider. My house temps are on the warm side. 77F during the day and 85F at night during the summer. That would be nice and toasty for the cocoons for hatching ❤️🪱🤩

[@anncoombs6787]

I'm not planning to get into this extensively.... just for fun and learning new things😅. I got a worm factory and love the idea of getting your methods with the worm factory but keeping it all outside most of the time... (might need the garage in the middle of winter in Oregon.... pretty mild here but a couple of days of snow each year). I've got a bin of precompost going in another bin and it's up to 100 now. What do you do with all your worms? My goal is to have worm castings for my garden. I enjoy your videos!

[@RockinWorms]

Hi Ann! Welcome! It’s great to have you here! I don’t have a worm factory myself (came close a few times buying one used but it hasn’t worked out yet) and understand they’re a great little system 👍 One thing to consider if you haven’t already is placing the feet if the system inside cups that can be filled with water. This discourages ants and similar pets from climbing up and into the worm factory. Esenias (red Wiggler family) has the widest temperature range so might be the best choice for you. Be very careful when buying worms as ‘red worms’ is NOT the same as red wigglers. Your worms are going to love the pre-compost! Great bedding and food for them 🤗. I’m just starting to sell some worms. I don’t have tons ready yet but I’ve got my first couple of orders that I’ll be working on filling next week, now that the temperature has dropped a bit. Very exciting for me! I’m glad you’re liking the content ❤️❤️🪱. Thanks for watching!

[@dannyskidmore1240]

Hi Jane I was wondering if I could feed dried weathered donkey apples to my European nightcrawlers

[@RockinWorms]

@@dannyskidmore1240 Sure can Danny! Red wigglers are also called manure worms and they don’t care what manure it is 😳🙄😎. Dried weathered donkey poop will have lost most of its nitrogen and be less likely to heat up in the worm bin. Its always safer at to keep the potential nitrogen source in one area so the worms can work their way into it when it’s safe for them 😊🪱. Ok?

[@cherylhowker1792]

Funny coz I was trying to mark on the calendar when I need to change the worms/get the cacoons out. And it so happens that Christmas weekend is when I should be doing them lol and I was like ahhh not Christmas. But will have Boxing Day will be worm day lol

[@RockinWorms]

Wow! You’re planning way far out! Impressive! 👍❤️🪱

[@cherylhowker1792]

@@RockinWorms it’s only 4-5 collections in 21 days.

[@RockinWorms]

@@cherylhowker1792 True. It sounds so far away but it isn’t. It’ll be the new year in about a nanosecond. ❤️🪱

[@cherylhowker1792]

@@RockinWorms yea. Tbh this year for me personally has been so tricky with so many ups and downs like a rollercoaster that I be glad to see it over, thought it was calming down and it’s set off again lol But I’m please I have my worms now. And just sorted out as much coffee grounds as I can take from Costa in town and an independent coffee shop and was talking to him about worms lol I got up the courage to as 2 men in 2 shops- now for me that’s a huge thing with my autism and my history it’s a huge thing…. I’m so proud of my self it’s like being on cloud nine atm. Lol

[@RockinWorms]

@@cherylhowker1792 Cheryl! That’s totally excellent!! Good for you! Absolutely you should be proud of yourself - you took a big step and it sounds like it paid off 👍❤️. Just remember this feeling and how you earned it so you can recall it when a setback does happen. Every time you use the coffee grounds give yourself a pat on the back. Wonderful ❤️🪱🪱

[@dnawormcastings]

I’m going to leave my breeding worms longer now and see if it makes a difference with more eggs counts as my bedding takes longer then 21 days to brake Down 🇳🇿❤

[@RockinWorms]

Hi! Please report back on how it goes and whether it works for you as you hope. Just keep in mind that you’ll probably want to turn that breeder bin directly and completely into a cocoon/nursery bin as sifting out with lots of tiny hatchlings will be difficult. 🪱🪱❤️

[@NanasWorms]

Hi Jayne, that's an interesting observation. What is the temperature of your vermicompost with the breeders? Thanks! ~ Sandra

[@RockinWorms]

Hi Sandra! I thought I answered this 🙄. The house ambient temperature is 77F during the day and 85F at night. 🪱🪱

[@NanasWorms]

@@RockinWorms You answered my question later in the day in our worm chat LOL!

[@RockinWorms]

@@NanasWorms Ok so I didn’t completely lose my mind on that 🤣🤣!

[@yes350yes]

Jane-- Maybe I missed it, once you remove all the breeder worms from that bin. which will have bedding cocoons and maybe some babies, what do you do with whats in that bin, do you try to dry out that bin and sift it for castings or what, thanks

[@RockinWorms]

@@yes350yes Hi Morris! Good question 👍. There’s a few options of course 😎. The easiest is to re-name the old breeder bin to be a cocoon bin. Then within a few weeks the cocoon bin will turn into a nursery bin as the wisps hatch from the cocoons. This is what I do. You can dry the bin down and sift for castings but that’s hard if there’s a lot of wisps already. They’re so small they go right thru the mesh. Also you don’t want to get too dry and perhaps kill wisps and dehydrate cocoons. When I’ve done this option it’s been when I’ve harvested the breeder bin on day 13-15 when the number of wisps is negligible. Some worm wranglers say they do a light migration on wisps but I’m not at all sure how big the ‘wisps’ are when they’re doing it. Tiny new worms tend to stay put, hiding on small clumps of damp bedding or castings, in my experience. The other option is to distribute the bedding, castings and cocoons and wisps among your other bins. The other bins absorb the wetter old breeder material and the moisture gets redistributed as well. Then I can come back on a few weeks and better sift out castings. I’ve done this too. I suggest you pick an option and give it a try. If it doesn’t work the way you want it to then simply try a different option next time 😊. I hope this helped you a bit! 😎😍🪱

[@yes350yes]

@@RockinWorms Thanks Jane for all those options. To be truthful the reason I started my breeder bin was to separate and be sure I had all red wigglers and not blues. This was tricky for me at first but spotting the yellow tails was the best option. It most likely doesnt make too much of a difference but at least I would know they are all red wigglers and evidently reds will only breed with like mates and not blues.

[@RockinWorms]

@@yes350yes What you’re doing is very common. Too many newbies end up with mixed species worms as a result of buying from certain big sellers 🙄. You’re correct - red wigglers and Indian blues will not breed as they are different species. But one breed can take over a bin by outbreeding the other, hogging resources, etc. The best way to get all all red wiggler bin is to pick them out and place in a fresh new bin. The yellow tail is very helpful as is the prominent clitellum. Blues have a clitellum that stays pretty flat against its body and is located closer to the head. If you keep at it you can get a red wiggler bin going and eventually reduce the count in the mixed bin. You can then divide in want to do with the mixed bin worms 😎. I do want to be clear that blues are very good composting worms! They do have their challenges but that doesn’t make them a bad worm 🥰🪱

[@cherylhowker1792]

The babies look about 5ish days old as when they a day they are about 1 mm