Hey Jenny, Everything I have read about worming said not to use glossy paper. I started my bins using cut up newsprint. It seems to have worked out fine. I also use shredded office paper which also works good. Recently I have been using shredded leaves and that has worked the best for bedding from my observations. If you don't take the newspaper ask a neighbor for some or see if you can get some recycled paper from somewhere (not glossy). I agree about restricting foodstocks. You may also find a smaller container to house the little guys in until they start having babies and the population increases. I have read that a less dense population will increase very slowly. When I started worming I bought Mary Applehoffs book "Worms Eat My Garbage". It's not expensive and very informative. I hope this helps,Tim

pjames might be on to something. I have collected manure from different piles. I always do a test of the manure before I feed it to the worms, but I only do one test, then assume the whole batch is good, even if the manure may have come from different horses.. OTOH, the die off seems to continue until long after I have fed horse manure. There is no clear consensus on whether dewormer is actually harmful to the worms. That is something I might experiment with when I have a healthy worm population. I would like to get a definitive answer on the dewormer question. I was reading an article yesterday (I can't find it now) that says that dewormer is 95% broken down in the horse's system, and degrades completely with exposure to sunlight. If the problem is dewormer, that would explain why I am only having a partial die off.

You may not be aware that Lumbricus rubellus is invasive and is threatening North American Forests. Quoting from: Invasive EarthwormsA Threat to North American Forests Plants & Gardens News : Volume 19, Number 1 : Spring 2004 by Niall Dunne http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/essays/2004su_worms.html "In 2002, Michael Gundale of Michigan Technological University published a report detailing how the epigeic bait and compost worm Lumbricus rubellus may be wiping out populations of the rare goblin fern, Botrychium mormo, and possibly other rare native plants too, in the Chippewa National Forest. Gundale credits the epigeic worm's destruction of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil as a reason for the goblin fern's decline. "John C. Maerz and colleagues from Cornell University have found strong evidence linking salamander decline in the hardwood forests of central New York and southeastern Pennsylvania to invasions by L. rubellus and Asian Amynthas species, among others. ..." "... With invasive earthworms wriggling amok in our forest soils, gardeners who use worms to decompose kitchen scraps and plant waste may want to take a closer look at what theyve got growing in their compost piles. Some of the traits that make worms ideal for vermicompostingsuch as high reproductive rate and adaptabilitymay also make them potentially successful invaders. "The worm predominantly sold for composting is the red wiggler or red tiger worm, Eisenia fetida. It has a rusty brown color with alternating yellow and maroon bands down the length of its body; a pigmentless membrane separates each segment. It grows up to three inches long and is highly prolific. Though the worm has established itself in the wild here, so far it has not been identified as a problem species. "Another popular compost species, the red worm, Lumbricus rubellus, is causing trouble, however, and should be avoided. It also grows up to three inches long and has a history of being confused with E. fetida. This worm is dark red to maroon, has a light yellow underside, and lacks striping between segments. "In The Earth Moved (Algonquin Books, 2004), a wonderful new book on earthworms by Amy Stewart, forest ecologist Cindy Hale advises worm composters to freeze their castings in air-tight bags for a least a week before adding them to garden soil, no matter what worms species they use. "It won't hurt the soil microbes, but it will kill all the worms."

harry57, "The beauty of doing bokashi is that the material can remain fermenting in the bucket for long periods of time until you're ready to use it." Exactly! It IS beautiful! "smell a bit whiffy" bokashi is a pickling process, well not as in a salt pickling process, but similar results. I think bokashi made from meat, cabbage, radish, manure, or rose pedals should in theory all smell the same. I hope to catch your posts on bokashi burying in the Earth Machine. Maybe toss a couple pieces of biochar... Cowboy Brand Charcoal... the chaff or small pieces and dust would not be missed from the primo stuff. "Earth Machine" does material Really flow through that? How hard is it to harvest? Is it possible to only harvest stuff that was put in the front and the material on the bottom in the back just lives there forever landlocked? Hmmmm. If I was using an "Earth Machine" to finish bokashi I would dump the bucket into the top. Then there would be a choice of materials to top off with. Any of the carbon materials ever mentioned on any composting board including vermicomposting. Garden soil is an option. Poor soil. Bokashi is a moist material. Hmmmmm. Sounds like lots of fun options.