I received my Original Wormery just over a week ago. I have set it up, as per instruction and left it alone for a week. I opened it tonight to add a bit of food and found one live worm at the top of the container, some mouldy food, but no other signs of life. I had a litle poke around to see if they were just hiding, but still no movement. Are they dead?

Oh dear, that sounds unusual to me. We held back worms most of last week due to the very unusual subtropical temperatures we had here!! But it looks as though yours didn't fare their journey very well at all.

If you could PM me your address and order number etc... I'll get some reinforcements winging (worming?) their way to you as soon as I can. Or, you can give us a call on 0808 120 9676 at your earliest convenience and one of our customer service can put an order through for you.
Regards,
Liam

Hi Liam
I did call last week and got some fresh worms but I'm not holding out too much hope for them either. I put them in and left alone for a few days. When I went to put in some food yesterday I could only see a couple of live worms - I had a poke around but still couldn't see much activity - maybe 4 or 5 worms moving. Post code is GU3 1LH - I don't have an invoice. What can be going wrong?
Susan

Hi Susan,

I'd give them a week to settle in and then see where we get to. Naturally with the weather being quite unusually hot last week we have had an increase in the number of worms that regrettably didn't fare the journey well. We held most non-urgent worm orders back most days last week. It would be unfortunate for you to receive 2 batches of un-pristine worms!

Anyway, if you give it a week, then open the lid and have a good thorough poke around and mix the contents up one evening. Check it the following morning and the fact you had disturbed the worms the night before would cause many of them to start climbing the sides of the bin etc... so they will be a lot more visible. If at this point you still don't see much activity - let us know and we'll go for third time lucky.

Kind Regards,
Liam

Thanks for that Liam. I'll be in touch beginning of next week.
Susan

Hi Liam
I've done as you suggested. I found 4 worms climbing the sides and could see 1, maybe 2 wriggling around at the bottom.
Susan

I had exactly the same problem! Now all my worms are dead, most within the first week! How can I stop it happening again? I tried shredded newspaper, but still ended up with a mouldy stinking mess. I only put a handful of food in but it just went mouldy.

Hi
My first two sets of worms died, but third set is doing fine (fingers crossed!). I put it down to weather being a bit cooler for third set. I also found a place for the wormery which is in constant shade (not easy). Keep trying!
Susan

If the number of worms and amount of bedding is insufficient for the size of wormery, they will easily be overwhelmed, by relatively small amounts of waste, perhaps containing something harmful to the worms, extreme temperatures, whether hot or cold (nowhere to go and hide). If the amount of bedding is reasonable (several litres) in the average sized wormery, it will provide a lot more protection and act as a buffer to conditions that may not be ideal.
The number or preferably weight of worms is also important, if you start with a handful they are going to struggle against the odds to survive, especially in a small volume of bedding, never mind breed up to a viable colony! A starter population of say several hundred grammes can afford to lose a few individuals in establishing and will stand a much better chance of becoming a useful working population.
The relationship between worms, mature bedding materials, fresh "sterile" bedding materials fresh waste and "mature" partially decomposing waste is a complex one and needs to be understood more fully to establish a good wormery without too many hitches!

Thanks Sueraf and mummymallard! I bought the junior wormery so I am assuming that the amount of bedding and worms provided was correct. I will get some more and try again! I am keeping the wormery in my kitchen which is quite cool. Away from the cooker, washing machine, fridge/freezer etc, in a quiet corner.