Unsustainable vermiculture

In 2008, I waxed poetic about my experiment in vermiculture and showed off all the lovely compost I received from my worms. Ah, how the tides have turned! Now worms are difficult to find and the cat poo fed to the little buggers just sits there. I suspect the worms suffered from a lack of attention as little as they need, compaction of their bedding and too much variability in the level of moisture in their enclosure. Even at the end of summer 2008, I noticed a slowdown in the amount of poop consumption and did not harvest as much finished compost in autumn. In fact, as I sorted worm from partially digested newspaper in October, the number of casings and worm eggs were severely lacking compared to the previous session with sorting worms from their casings.

I need to do more reading on vermiculture before buying more worms. While my first venture into worm farming ended in failure, learning from my mistakes is part of the human experience. I have shown that worms can compost cat poop and give me a way to turn it into a resource I can use in my yard. I just need figure out how to maintain it for longer than a few months.