Does the powdered egg provide protein for the gym bodybuilding worms in the worm bins? LOL
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HaaahXD nah the egg has calcium in it. Worms use grits like that and rock dusts to break down things inside of them.
Oh I thought you were giving them dehydrated eggs like you use for camping, I thought man your treating those wigglers better than I am myself! LOL!
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Ok boys and girls, time for everyone’s favorite game, “Should I feed this to my worms?”
- Corrugated cardboard: I hesitate to give this to my worms, as it seems highly processed. There’s glue in there, it smells funny… anyway.
- Avocado: I have one that turned to mush. It’s a fruitable (vegruit?), but it’s a fatty/creamy one, and fatty/creamy seems like a NOOOO for worms.
- Quinoa (cooked): Forgotten leftovers. I know starch/carbs “in moderation” is fine, I’ve just been straight-up avoiding them, however.
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Wigglers go ape shit over avocado! I’v also heard somewhere the glue on boxes is also something they like, haven’t tried quinoa, I would have a tendency to stay away from any starchy products however!
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Thought I would share a paragraph from “Teaming with microbes” by jeff Lowenfels
“Vermicastings”
Vermicasting( the name given to worm poop) are 50% higher in organic matter then soil that has not moved through worms . This is an astonishing increase and radical changes the composition of soil ,increasing CEC because the greater amount of charge holding organic surfaces .Other nutrients,therefore, has the ability to attach to the organic matter that has passed through a worm.
The benefits don’t stop there the worms digestive enzymes (or properly those produced by bacteria in the worms intestines) unlock many of the chemical bonds that otherwise tie up nutrients and prevent there being plant available .Thus worm castings are as much as seven times richer in phosphate than soil that has not been through an earthworm. They have 10 times available potash; five times the nitrogen three times the usable magnesium and they are one half times higher in calcium (thanks to the calcium carbonate added during digestion).All these nutrients bind onto organic matter in fecal pellets .
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The two last ones are fine. I also dont feed cardboard for this reason. Worms love a place to lay eggs though and the space in carboard is great for them. Personally i mix a mulch in my worm bin for this reason
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I have a whole book on vermiculture in my dropbox link thread. I tried to post the PDF here but the files too large.
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Hey friends,
I’ve recently had an explosion of tiny brown mites in my bin, and my worms are pretty pissed – I’ve found around 100 escapee worm jerky corpses in the past two weeks. The mites seem to favor “browns” with large surface area: my newspaper cover, for example, was completely covered… and so that went to the standard compost pile.
It sounds like cutting back on feeding, letting the bin dry out a bit, and adding some rock dust/eggshells to reduce acidity should help: anyone have any additional recommendations? I’ve already done all of the above for the past two weeks without much change, was thinking of adding some neem meal and compost (biodiversity!) to see if that helps…
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I used neem meal in my big with great and tragic results lol. Great when only adding about 2-3 tsp across the 24x12" surface. Tragic when adding 1-2 tbsp across the same area
Edit: p.s. it’ll make your room smell like neem for a couple days after adding.
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Are you sure that there not predatory mites? The hypoaspis miles variety?
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Was gonna say the same thing… I add them to my soil compost to keep bad bugs at bay
Something else must be going on. Did it get hot or cold? Is it too wet/acidic?
I have tons of those same mites Stratio-S aka H. Miles. They love fungus gnat larva. My worms only get fed coffee grounds, egg shells, sunflower seeds, mulched newspaper, and the dregs from neem, kelp, and barley teas. When I was feeding fruit and veggie scraps it was getting too wet and mushy.
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I am not 
I googled a little harder to try and find a pic and came across “orabitid turtle mites”:
That looks to be about the right color, poppyseed-sized. The underside of my newspaper cover was basically a solid sheet of those little buggers.
RH is definitely up in my house (thanks, spring!), so it’s entirely possible that my usual diet (probably about a 2:1 ratio of browns:greens) got things a little too moist. I put a powdered eggshell or two, ground oyster shell, or glacial rock dust in every time I feed, so I hope acidity isn’t an issue.
FWIW, I haven’t had any brave worm astronauts escape from the confines of their habitat since I removed the newspaper cover, but that’s probably because things are drying out a bit… I’ll keep all ya’ll posted if things change one way or the other.
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Is that a google pic or your own?
That pic provided almost looks like the worm cacoons the worms produce!
Google pic, but side story!
These guys first came to my attention when I put an avocado peel into the bin… I took a peek to see if the worms were having a party in their avocado bowl, and instead found a thousand tiny little brown orbs… I got excited because I thought they were little baby worm eggs or something, but then noticed they were all crawling around 
Anyway, it’s all gone into the outdoor compost, so if they’re beneficial buggies it’s not a complete waste. I’m also sure plenty of them remain in the worm bin…
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I put Avocado shells with a little flesh in my bins worms all the time they seem to go crazy over them however wondering if it’s something that came in on the outside of the the avocado it’s self? Mite eggs that hatched perhaps… guess that be a good reason to rinse your fruit and veggies when bringing them home from the store! On a side note one would be surprised how much stuff like the happens I freeze a lot of my veggie fruit peelings prior to adding to my bins for that very reason!
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Freezing it first is a great idea, it helps them break down and start to decompose more quickly too. Loving the worm talk here. To add to the avocado talk, I had one germinate in my worm bin. 
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Are your egg shells dried then ground first, or just toss in whole/after breaking the egg open?