Hey guys, it's Ann. Welcome to the channel. If you're new here, this channel is all about looking at different kinds of warm-bin systems and different kind of worms. Now what we're gonna look in on today is the African Nightcrawlers, which are Udrillus Eugenie A, if we're getting scientific about it, and today that is exactly what we're going to do. I am going to get into the science of why African Nightcrawlers are so dramatically different than other kinds of worms. So as I'm working through the worm bin here and taking care of them, we're gonna talk about my research that I've done in various books and my own experience on the African Nightcrawlers. So if you want to buy African Nightcrawlers or if you already have African Nightcrawlers and you wonder why they're so different than your red wigglers, keep watching and we are going to go through it bit by bit. First off let me start off by saying that this bin was managed three weeks ago. We did about a five-gallon harvest through the bottom panel. I can link that last video at the end if you'd like to watch that. But then they were also fed about three gallons of food and probably at least four gallons of my prepared bedding. They're food last time. I'll put a picture below but it was a combination of different vegetables as well as some of my bonsais that didn't make it and clippings from my plants. So they got a very good feeding last time. So I want to show you this is the preliminary castings. What we're looking at right now is what they've done the first time around. Now this was just paper and before and now it is kind of ground up and almost looks like coffee grounds. So between the worms and the critters that live in the bin, they go through it multiple times before it becomes finished castings. So the worms, some people actually think that worms don't eat the food but they actually do. They do have mouths and they do have openings where they kind of pull things in and that sort of information is available everywhere from Darwin's first book on the vegetable mold where it talks about how the worms actually grab the tip of a leaf and pull it in their mouth. So even though they're tiny they do actually still manage to put things in their mouth. They don't have to wait entirely for other things to break them down for them. Okay so we're still kind of going through here and seeing what there is left of the last feeding. We still see some of the orchid leaves. This was probably a pepper plant. Definitely seeing some of the bedding and the avocado shells. As you see me going through here I am picking out labels and things the nature that were on the plants that didn't make it. We've got a lot of sprouts here probably from the melon that was put in there. It's their favorite food so after three weeks I'm not really expecting to see anything but what you will see is a corn cob. So anyway getting back to the African microleurs as a species they are native to West Africa and they originate in the tropical and sub-tropical zones there. That is the only place that they naturally live. Now they are at their best when it is 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit which is 24 to 30 degrees Celsius which is one of the reasons that I was not immediately successful with these kind of worms because most of my worms as you may know if you're not new here most of my worms are in the basement which in the winter time can get you know close to freezing. The ginger is still going but look at that. Look at that. You opened up the ginger and there was castings right inside the ginger. That's so funny. Anyway I digress. So these you know worms are actually as different are more different from red wigglers and European night crawlers than humans are to any kind of ape. They are completely different families from the and I can link to the Wikipedia if you want to walk if you want to read for yourself but they're actually that much different which does explain why some of their personality if you want to call it personality is really different than the red wigglers and the European night crawlers. So one of the books that I have read where I've probably gained the most knowledge is Edwards and lofty. The book is called The Biology of Earthworms and that's probably where I've got most of my information. I do have links below to the books that I've read that I've bought off of Amazon that are about worm composting but the book I'm talking about is very specifically about the biology and physiology of earthworms. If you're enjoying this video so far go ahead and give it a muddy thumbs up. If you're not a member of my worm family click that subscribe button and if you want to know what I'm doing when I'm doing it ring that little bell icon. So as we're going through here we see that they really did make quick work out of the bedding which is there you know that is their calling card. African night crawlers are amazing. If you have a lot of shredded boxes, newspaper, cereal boxes they will eat all of it. Now we put in four to five gallons of paper in here and three or four pounds of food and really only the long-term food is what we're finding at this point. And then looking at what they've already done with the Amazon boxes and the shredded paper it's pretty amazing what they've accomplished for probably about I don't know five to ten pounds of worms in here. I have not harvested them in a very long time so I don't know how many of them are in here. Alright so as I go on to their feeding one of the other properties of the African night crawlers that you don't necessarily see in other species is the fact that they they shrink. So as the population in this bin goes up the sides of the worm goes down but according to the book that I was reading you also you're not limited to a certain amount of worms so whereas I was afraid that biomass would top out according to the book you have your greatest biomass when the worms are smaller and although you know sometimes I think maybe that's intuitive but I also think that sometimes I think that if there's X amount of worms that population that larger population is actually going to prohibit them from breeding but it sounds like from the book that I was going through it does actually sound like they will continue to breed but the worms just won't get as big. So they said low populations you have larger worms high populations smaller worms but yet you will have a there will be more pounds of worms if they're smaller and they won't quit breeding. So I thought that was interesting. Alright so they've got some of that coconut they've got some crackers they've got some bread some pita bread I gave them some more clippings but now I'm gonna actually give them a little bit of water because this is very dry and I don't want them to I do want them to get into it I don't want them to have to just have this stuff you know rot on top slowly so that's about a half a gallon or about two liters of water that I just put in there. Okay and so in keeping with what is best for the African net crawlers I am going to include a lot of betting in with this feeding. So this is my aged prepared betting that is about 80% shredded cardboard and paper and 20% coconut car if you see a little bit more coconut car in here it's because I sifted the soil to make my bonsai soil and the very small particles that would clog up the drainage holes end up going into the betting for the worms. Alright well if you liked this video you're gonna want to watch the rest of the playlist for the African night crawlers and the Burmese bag little mammoth and I will link that right over there. Now if you want to see the last video where I did a quick harvest and then fed them up a ton of food and betting I'll link that right over there and if you've already seen all of that YouTube thinks you're going to like this video down here. Alright guys thanks for hanging out with me in my worms and everybody have a good day.