predators


Roi Melcherts asked 1 year ago

did you ever had flatworms – hammerheads – invade your worm farm and started killing all your worms. If so, what did you do about that.First I had a big cement space,(2×2 x1.50 M (lxwxh) doubled as my compost heap outside. Noticed that I had less and less worms left . Thought it must be ants, because i had ants in there, but never a big problem. Only ate dead or wounded worms. checked at night suddenly worms (European and African night crawlers and normal earthworms) starting to flee the heap Then I noticed they were chased b By a hammerhead, (did not know they were eating worms) Next day I uprooted the heap and found more then 50!! Disposed of those, (did not cut or smashed,) but it did not get better. Took out most of the night crawler s and placed in a bin on legs abut 50 cm fro0m the ground. One day i saw a homing in on the bin. Climbing the legs and trying to get in. Checked inside and found a long (15 cm) inside. Again, started a new bin.  by now no earth worms left in my garden!!! 

1 Answers
wormadmin Staff answered 1 year ago

Hi Roi
Yes, flatworms are a severe predator of worms and worm farms (and anything else living.)
Theres nothing to be done except remove them when you see them.
They need to be disposed of in a bag of salt – they can grow into multiple worms if cut.
Sorry for the bad news

Thanks for asking your question
Regards
Brian