Red wigglers

Red wigglers are the worm almost everyone starts with, and for good reason. They live in the top few inches of decaying organic matter rather than burrowing in soil, so they are perfectly suited to a bin. They eat a lot for their size, a well-run bin can process roughly half the worms’ weight in food scraps a day, and they reproduce quickly enough that a pound of worms becomes a thriving colony within a season.

Identifying them

Red wigglers are small, two to three inches as adults, reddish brown with faint yellow banding between the segments (hence the nickname “tiger worm”). The tail tip is often yellowish. Adults carry a raised, lighter-coloured clitellum (the saddle) about a third of the way back from the head. When handled they wriggle hard and may release a little yellowish fluid with a distinctive smell, which is where fetida comes from. The identification post has photos, and this comparison sets them beside European nightcrawlers, which are often sold under confusingly similar names.

Keeping them

They want three things: moist bedding (shredded cardboard, paper, aged leaves, coir), food buried in the bedding rather than piled on top, and temperatures that stay out of the extremes. They tolerate crowding well, which is why a compact bin works. Drainage and airflow matter more than volume. If the bin smells, it is usually too wet or overfed, not too full.

The beginner’s guide covers setting up a first bin step by step, and the bedding post compares every bedding we tried on the farm.

Breeding

Under good conditions red wigglers are prolific. Each cocoon holds several hatchlings, and a mature worm can lay a cocoon every few days. Warmth, moisture and a steady food supply speed things up; cold or dry bins slow them to a crawl. We wrote about what we saw in our own beds in earthworm egg capsules and red worm reproduction.

Red wigglers on this farm

Worms Etc raised red wigglers from 2009 until 2015, when the farm switched to European red worms only. The reasons are in that post; the short version is that the larger worm served both composting and bait customers and handled the South Carolina summers better in our outdoor beds. For an indoor kitchen bin, red wigglers remain the easiest worm to succeed with.