Avoid feeding the worms large quantities of meat, citrus, onions and dairy foods. Some processed food also contains preservatives, which discourage the worms from eating it. These foods won't harm your worms, but they will avoid them and those scraps will break down and rot in the bin.
Worms hate: meat or fish, cheese, butter, greasy food, animal waste, spicy and salty foods, citrus.” The food-to-worm ratio is not precise, nor is the amount of castings they will produce. The rule of thumb is that a pound of worms will eat one to two pounds of food in a week.
The big rule to bear in mind when feeding worms fruit is to avoid fruit with citric acid. Fruits you definitely want to avoid include oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit and pineapple. Feeding these types of fruits can cause them to try to crawl away and it may kill them. So that's what they don't like.
Banana peels are an excellent worm food.
The Seven Worst Things to Feed Your Worms:
Meat, bone, and gristle. Dairy and that includes milk, cream, butter, yogurt and cheese. Acidic foods which include pineapple, limes, oranges, and lemons plus their rinds, and tomatoes. Any food with preservatives and chemicals such as fast food.
There are certain pesticide families that are considered as harmful to earthworms i.e. neonicotinoids, strobilurins, sulfonylureas, triazoles, carbamates and organophosphates (Pelosi et al., 2014).
Eggshells as food for composting worms
Composting worms can absolutely be fed with crushed shells from eggs. You should know that compost worms will eat just about anything that's organic (all except meat, seafood, poultry, dairy, oily, or spicy stuff).
The rolled oats, cornmeal, and alfalfa work together to plump up your worms quickly. The finer this mix is powdered, the quicker your worms will eat it up and fatten up. Moisten your worm bedding and then sprinkle it over the bedding surface.
Answer: You can add moldy food (vegetables and fruits only) to a backyard composting bin anytime. Mold cells are just one of the many different types of microorganisms that take care of decomposition and are fine in a backyard bin.
Want to give your worms a treat? Add ice. Place plain ice on top of the bedding or buried in the center of the bin. You can cool and feed the worms all at once by freezing scraps and water together.
Tea Bags: Yes! The tea bags will start to break down in the worm bin, and the worms will finish off the contents. The string and paper tab might not break down as quickly. You can rip them off before saving a tea bag.
Worms can't digest meat proteins or lactose, so no dairy products either, like milk or cheese. While worms do like egg shells, the egg cannot go in the bin. Citrus and salt can actually harm the skin of the worms.
Yes, in moderation, bread, and in fact, all grain based foods, are worthy of your worms' processing power. Stale bread remains just as full of nutrients and building blocks for worm growth as the fresh stuff. However, these starchy foods can end up a gooey mess.
Worms like to eat most vegetable scraps (except raw potatoes and peelings) they love fruit especially melon, pineapple and apple peels (they don't like citrus), they enjoy herbs (but don't like strong flavours like chilli, onion and garlic).
What can I compost in a worm farm? Grains, cooked or uncooked (rice, oats, barley, wheat, etc.) The smaller the pieces, the quicker they'll break down in the compost pile. Be sure to cut cores in half and break down the pumpkin you forgot to eat.
Worms like hiding places, and the pieces of egg carton or a torn up toilet roll serve nicely. Wet the egg carton pieces/toilet rolls and the brown paper bag or cardboard.
Bread, rice, pasta, processed foods - you can add the odd crust or bits of cooked rice off the dinner plate, but don't add lots of starchy foods. Worms don't like them and they may go off or attract pests. Acidic foods - citrus, pineapple, garlic and onions.
What Eats Earthworms? Earthworm predators include organisms like centipedes, birds, flatworms, lizards, snakes, some crawling insect species such as beetles, turtles, and fish. With their many predators, earthworms have developed escape strategies to bolt from predation.
Worms don't need much to stay healthy and happy, but occasionally bad things happen. Just like humans, worms respond to changes in their environment. Sometimes the conditions in your worm bin may have become unintentionally harmful to your worms.
Some species can release a stinging substance. Earthworms and red wriggler worms are perfectly safe to hold bare-handed, though it's probably prudent to wash your hands before eating your next meal.
Dairy products such as milk, cheese, and yogurt should never go into a worm bin. Even non-fat varieties are bad for composting worms. Therefore, dispose of meat, bones, gristle, and dairy products in the trash.
Grass clippings are a great addition to a traditional compost pile and worms will eat these as well in their natural setting, but in your vermicomposting system, they will heat up the soil and can kill all of your worms.
They will happily digest a wide variety of organic plant material into nutrient rich worm castings. I put old lettuce in there, rotten vegetables, potato peels, fruit, grass clipping, and leaves, just to name a few. They especially love the fruit.