Answer: The Great Escape by your worms means there is an imbalance in the worm bin. If your bin becomes too acidic, too moist, too dry, too compact, full of rotting food, full of food they don't like, too warm, too cold, or they just organize an expedition, your worms can attempt an escape from your bin.
Keeping a light on around the clock for the first couple of days will encourage the worms to burrow into the bedding. If worms are escaping from drainage holes in the bin, covering the holes with nylon stockings will block escape passages while allowing air to circulate. Keep your bin in a relatively peaceful location.
You will notice worms can sometimes be seen on footpaths just before it rains; they are doing this to avoid being drowned in their burrows in heavy rain (they are need oxygen to breath just like us). Worms are over 90% water so if there is a lot of moisture in the air they are quite comfortable moving around.
This usually happens when it's about to rain. Before it begins to rain, the air pressure (barometric pressure) in the atmosphere drops, and the worms can sense this, so they climb to the top to avoid drowning. This is a natural survival instinct for when the rain floods their burrows and tunnels in the ground.
Excess Moisture
If the bin is too wet, your worms will start to drown. They may try to crawl away from the danger. This is also bad for composting and can stink up the bin. Excess mold and even mildew can grow – yuck!
Here is a news article I found on the topic: Worms on a Hook Don't Suffer? OSLO (Reuters) - Worms squirming on a fishhook feel no pain -- nor do lobsters and crabs cooked in boiling water, a scientific study funded by the Norwegian government has found.
They can cover a lot more ground on the surface. The problem is, earthworms need to stay moist. Most of the time, they would dehydrate if they were above ground. But when it rains, the surface is moist enough for worms to survive and remain hydrated.
“They all have a sense of direction (forward and backward), and they can sense light, but not with eyes; heat; moisture; chemicals; and touch,” said Mark Siddall, curator in the division of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Worms are ready to breed once they mature from 50 to 90 days. Earthworms are hermaphrodites; they can be male or female (a great advantage!). They can perform both male and female functions and mate every 7 to 10 days. The mating process takes around 24 hours.
Usually, worms dying in vermicompost systems can be traced back to one of a few problems: incorrect moisture levels, problematic temperatures, lack of air circulation, and too much or too little food. Keeping a worm farm means constantly checking it for these key items.
There is no need to stir up any composting worm bin IF you have proper drainage and holes in the bottom and sides of the worm bin. composting worms do a great job on their own of stirring up the compost this allows for the autonomous drainage/aeration of the contents 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.
But in some cases, the tail end of a worm will regenerate new tail segments rather than a head, the Washington Post reports. This will prolong the worm's life, but only temporarily because although it can absorb oxygen it cannot eat.
In extreme conditions, worms like humans will not survive the cold. If your worms are too cold, they will crawl a lot and eventually mass together in a ball to keep warm.
Worms don't bite. They also don't sting. 3. They are cold-blooded animals, which means they don't maintain their own body heat but instead assume the temperature of their surroundings.
Worms can live for up to 10 years. Worms don't have a stomach. Instead, food goes directly to their intestine. Worms eat their own weight in organic waste, soil and minerals and excrete their own weight in castings daily.
Don't be fooled though, they make up for it with the interesting aspects they do have. Like five hearts that squeeze two blood vessels to push blood throughout their little bodies. Earthworms have mucus and little hairs covering their skin that allows them to move through different types of soil.
However, earthworms can survive if their tail end is cut off, and can regrow their segments but earthworms generally cannot survive if the front part of their body between the head and the saddle is cut as this is where their major organs are.
Pet worms are best watched, not played with and touched. It hurts a worm to be handled by your hands because they are designed to live in the soil. If you have to move your worm from one place to another, be very gentle and try to move it with a little soil around it to protect it from your hands. Say no to sun!
Worms Exhibit Fear and Respond to Anti-anxiety Meds | Technology Networks.
Earthworms have no ears, but can sense vibrations. Vibrations can be made by the sounds of animals nearby causing vibrations within or on the soil surface. Moles for instance are known to create vibrations which can lead earthworms to try and avoid them by migrating to the soil surface.
For instance: researchers at a Belgian university have discovered that worms use touch to influence one another's behaviour, rubbing their bodies together to communicate.
Earthworms have some natural enemies such as ants, centipedes, birds, snakes, toads, carabid beetles, and nematodes. Do not apply pesticides to control earthworms.