they seem to like clinging to wet plastic for some reason. I find them crawl up the inside of the worm bin quite a bit.

My guess is that in order for the species to survive a certain percentage need to search out new areas in case the old areas stop being good. It only takes a small percentage of this to work for it to be a good stratagie. We see the ones that did not work at the bottom of buckets of water. No doubt there are probably worms living in the dregs of house gutters. Certainly there is a lot of marbles found in them.

As to how they do it, water tension and their natural mucus. Why it needs to be wet. Take a wet tissue, wad it up a little and toss it against the window ;)

Each segment of a worm has tiny hairs called 'setae' that the worm is able to extend or retract. By extending some and retracting others, the worm is able to push their body along.

I'm a newbie as my son made a 10 gallon worm bin for me last fall and I would like to know how much moisture I should keep in it. I haven't added any since he made it and it is just starting to feel somewhat dry. Thanks for any help.

As wet as a damp sponge is what I've heard. Don't want any standing water for sure, and if it's getting bone dry it's a problem. But the worms in general are pretty tolerant so it's more keeping them happy as opposed to keeping them alive. I prefer a little dryer as that won't cause problems like too wet can and remember the top layer and the bottom layer can be very different in water content, make sure you've got a drain that works well.

Hi All! A dry worm is a dead worm. Worms need water to breath. The worms skin must be moist in order for oxygen to pass from water/air into worm. Because you prefer dry don't mean the worms do. Worms can and do live in very moist places the need is for O2 to be present. A condition of too wet is preferable to too dry.

I don't see where wet sponge = dry?

Anyway hibiscusfan, standing water and unprocessed food fouling the bin by having it go anaerobic is a bigger danger than it getting non dripping wet for the worms. Maybe if you're aiming for max production, wet as possible is best, but as you said you were a novice I was talking more safety. If it did get quite dry, it might slow the worms down until you add some water, but it's not going to kill a bin like too wet can which is why I prefer not running on the edge of soaking. Especially if I don't want to be bothering checking the bin all the time. If you google around you'll see far more posts on bin deaths due to too much than too little moisture (never actually seen one).

Here's a good vid of how dry it can be while holding worms (what I aim for during harvesting). Not that this is at all ideal while processing food, but just shows that dryer doesn't mean instant death. Actually when worms are shipped, it's a lot drying than even this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im1btoL9irI&feature=related

Hi Peter; The video shows exactly what I was saying. That composted material was quite moist sticking to Bentlys gloves and compacting into a ball with little pressure on it. Bently even says that the material in the center was more moist and better work by the worms than the outer dryer portion of the bin he was using to keep the worms in. Moistness short of standing water is preferred by worms. That is not nessissarly perferred by humans who have to work in it in order to harvest the worms and compost. I personally keep my worms moist as possible just short of standing droplets of water and have never lost a worm to moisture level to high or a bin going anaerobic because of lack of oxygen during a bedding compaction and biomass explosion which is the cause of the condition of lack of oxygen in the first place.

Making sure that the airflow is high volumn and bedding is not compacted fixes all the moisture problems. When some folks remove standing water by tilting bin and using a rubber bulb fixture of some type to remove standing water then by all means try some dry bedding matrerial to leach up the excess water. Letting a bin slowly go through its cycle of evaporation, condensation with the water on sides and top of bin will cause the worms to crawl to the water droplets on the sides and try to get on the tops inside surface where the water is because the water has lots of oxygen in it. Worms prefer wet to dry.

You didn't really say any of that in your initial two line response, just said 'too wet is better' which to the novice whom I was responding to can be fatal without the additional info (let alone an example of wet). He might have just kept adding water whenever he saw the top dry without checking anything else (goodness knows enough people do that to houseplants ;) ) or knowing how do deal with excess water.

Also the comments 'dry worm is a dead worm' 'wetter is better' after a 'wet sponge' example is way wetter than you are now talking about after mentioning the video and clarifying how moist your bins are. You might have not meant it that way but that's how it came across, I certainly thought so. Hence my second post so he won't think a wet sponge is borderline death by dryness and he puts more water in. Maybe you were just trying a quick post without thinking how it could be taken.

Anyway I don't think we disagree at all on good conditions for the worms, just what and how much info you're giving to a novice just starting out. IMO a two line generization with no examples and also leaning the way that can kill a bin (flooding) needed a clarification.

I keep my bins soggy. My worms are happy. I have dry bedding on top but everything else is as damp as a soggy sponge ;-)

As far as the original question - probably because they don't brains to realize how good they've got it.