more worm farm buggies

[heather81]

Hello there,

Sorry to ask another similar worm farm question regarding potentially unwanted invaders.... but, we recently inherited a home-made worm farm from a friend with three polystyrene trays. We are learning how to use it and appreciate it!

We have revived it with a bit of rain and a bit of veggie scraps and worms seem to be doing well, however it came complete with cockroaches (yuk) and now an absolute explosion of tiny brown round "bugs" all over the damp newspaper and scraps. There were hundreds and now a couple of days later I would say thousands. I am hoping they are harmless and not baby cockies or something horrid that I dont want near the house?! I've attached some pics, sorry for poor resolution, but if anyone could put my mind at ease I would be so grateful. We live in Perth.

Thank you!

[tam]

The first pic made me think baby snails but the second pic seems a lot of snails to hatch out.

[heather81]

Thanks Tam, I hadn't thought of snails but although I haven't picked one up to inspect it, there seems to be alot of "crawling" going on rather than snail-ly slithering! I would suspect there are little legs under each of those thousands of critters! They move pretty quickly.

[bubba louie]

Probably a mite of some kind.


I found this.......
Q) What are the red and brown mites in the worm farm?

A) They do not harm the worms and are composters too, they help to break down the fibrous materials. If present in large proportions – leave the lid off the farm and expose the surface of the bedding to sunlight.

Also here...........

http://brisbanelocalfood.ning.com/forum ... nt%3A24295

[heather81]

Woohoo! Thank you, you've solved it for me, after checking Google Images i'm convinced you are correct.

Time to implement some "mite reduction strategies" methinks!

Thank you for your help, I appreciate it.