Did you figure out what was wrong yet? Not all of my worms rush from the light all the time, either. I've always just figured these were the slow pokes. There must be a reason some are slower. I don't know about the snails though. Maybe someone has experience with that. Have you thought of moving the worms into new bedding? Even if you couldn't get all of them, you might save some until you figure out what the problem is. Keep us posted.

Hi Kath -

Thank you for replying. Evidently they are New Zealand mud snails which are harmless to the worms except that they are extremely invasive and will reproduce my the thousand within a week or two. One of the people on another forum had them in her aquarium and she had to clean out her aquarium twice with scalding hot water to get rid of them. She had to boil her rocks, etc. as well. So I have to remove all of my worms and cocoons from the bedding and rinse them off with warm water and then place them in fresh new bedding after thoroughly cleaning my bin and trays with super hot water. The only best way to kill the snails is to drop them and their eggs in salt water. So I figure after I remove my worms and eggs I'll dump all of the bedding and compost into a bucket of salt water and then dispose of it.

I hope my worms are just slow like yours. :P Maybe it's just the type I have - I have Indian Blues.