Uncle Jim's Worm Farm 1,000 Count Red Wiggler Live Composting Worms Garden, Lawn, Supply, Maintenance

I am a previous customer (2016) of this company, and had great success with composting using the red wigglers. The batch of 1000 that I initially ordered last week came traumatized (exposed to deep freeze enroute?) and only 60% were alive after 48 hours. I contacted the sales department at Uncle Jim's, had a lovely exchange with Hana there, and a replacement batch was sent promptly. I'm happy to say that the second batch was fine and presently the gang is hard at work in the composting bin. I appreciate the quality of these worms and the integrity of Uncle Jim's to stand by their product and guarantees.

Worms arrived in a package that showed quite a bit of wear but did not seem to have any damage to the worms. This was covered in the video and entirely expected. The worms themselves were lively and recovered well in my "worm farm". Some have been used for fishing and are quite lively, while the others are working hard with compost prior to the gardening season here in Idaho. Great investment!

I got worms! These guys arrived quickly and were all happy and healthy. My compost bin is loving them. They are happily eating my kitchen scraps, shredded papper and leaf waste. Makes composting more efficient and dare I say... fun.

I purchased 1,000 worms, but the first batch was disappointing—very lightweight, and when I counted, there were only 172. I reached out to the seller, and they promptly sent a replacement. The second batch was much better—properly packaged, sealed, and full of worms. I appreciate the quick response and resolution. Thank you!

Satisfait, arriver en pleine forme et se reproduise rapidement depuis

I received a bag of dirt with NO WORMS! Unbelievable!!!

They came before estimated date. All were healthy looking. Been great

*Update: Apr. 5, 2024Do not buy worms from Uncle Jim's. After contacting the seller to express dissatisfaction with my order not containing the worm species that is advertised in the product listing, I initially received a response from Katie. Katie politely and helpfully offered a replacement shipment or refund for my order. After further communication regarding a potential replacement shipment, the conversation was resumed by Erma. Erma implied that I was unreasonably and dishonestly seeking a refund for an order that she considered satisfactorily fulfilled. The product that I purchased was listed as "Red Wiggler Composting Worms Mix for Garden Soil or Fishing, 1000 Count". One could reasonably expect that there would be Red Wiggler worms in such an order. There was not a single one as far as I could tell, the entire bag containing Indian Blue worms. Erma explained in the Contact Seller chat that their composting worms are a mix of three species and that what I had purchased was "1000 Count Red Composting Worms" a very close, but vaguer approximation of the actual product listing on their Amazon storefront. Erma then said that I had received exactly what I had ordered and was therefore ineligible for a replacement or refund, essentially rescinding the earlier refund offer. Whether this was a misunderstanding or a terse and negligent display of customer service, I’m dissatisfied with the product and interaction either way. No other large-scale online vermicomposting supplier equates "Red Wigglers" with anything other than the species Eisenia fetida. Perionyx excavatus (Indian Blue worms) are more likely to escape from your composting bin and have caused a crawling mess all over my basement. While expecting 100% species purity for an order of 1000 worms is unreasonable and unrealistic, you would certainly expect most of the worms to be of the species listed in the product title. This is at best an inaccurate and at worst a deliberately deceptive product description. The term "Red Wiggler" should be removed from the description entirely and replaced with something like "Mixed Composting Worms". Spending $55 to receive something that I didn't want and then basically being called a liar angered me to the point of writing this updated review to warn other potential buyers. Order your worms from a more transparent and customer-friendly seller like Midwest Worms or Buckeye Organics.*Original: March 28, 2024I bought 1lb of "Red Wiggler" composting worms from Uncle Jim's a while ago to start a composting bin for food scraps in my basement. I didn't really have any knowledge about vermicomposting at the time and Uncle Jim's seemed to be one of the most established suppliers of live composting worms. After many hours spent reading articles and watching YouTube videos to become more familiar with the hobby, I incidentally discovered that what I purchased were not in fact Red Wiggler worms, but Indian Blue worms. Red Wigglers (Eisenia fetida) and Indian Blues (Perionyx excavatus) are probably the two best worm species for composting and look very similar, but there are some differences. Red Wigglers are native to Europe and are more tolerant of colder conditions (probably more appropriate for my location), while Indian Blues are native to southeast Asia and have evolved to thrive in tropical and subtropical conditions. From everything that I've read, Indian Blues are just as if not more effective composters than Red Wigglers, but they have an increased tendency to wander from their habitat and are far more sensitive to changes in barometric pressure. They may try to escape from your container en masse around the onset of a thunderstorm, something that I would have definitely factored into my decision when purchasing my initial colony. I wanted this operation to be as easy and hassle free as possible and had no interest in chasing stray worms around my basement. I'm guessing that once they have become more established in their new habitat the escapes will be less frequent, and I will alter the design of my bin if necessary. However, I do not appreciate what seems like an intentionally misleading product description. The product has "Red Wiggler Composting Worms" all over the page; its only when reading the fine print of the description that you will find "may contain different earthworm species", something that you're not going to notice or care about if you're just starting out. Further, Red Wigglers (if there even are any in there) and Indian Blues cannot reproduce. You then essentially have two different worm populations in direct competition with each other, limiting the potential growth of your colony. Uncle Jim apparently can't be bothered to separate the two species for shipping, and you're left with something other than what you thought you were getting. If you're concerned about getting true Red Wiggler worms, buy them from a different seller that specifically lists their product as Eisenia fetida.

I’m totally new to the worm composting stuff but I was excited to get started despite not being immune to the eww yuck feeling towards bugs in general. The worms arrived and I was admittedly a little nervous about opening a large sack full of worms. Without having to touch them with my hands I was able to open the bag and empty the contents of the sack. The worms appear to be on the smaller side (for whatever reason, that made it less daunting). They were all alive and started hiding in the soil. I ordered a box of worms and got a box of worms, what more could I ask for.

They are doing well in my worm composter. Hungry little devilsVery well packed and shipped in great condition

I have purchased from worm box on multiple occasions. Their worms are always superb, healthy and have no complaints. Fast shipping five-star rating from this guy

I received my pound of worms very quickly and every single one was alive and healthy. I had been prepping my worm factory 360 for a week so it was nice and ready. I would buy from this seller again ALL DAY LONG!

My little worms arrived in great shape. I live in Arizona, so I waited until temperatures had fallen below 90 degrees before I ordered. My worms were shipped on Tuesday and I picked them up at the local post office on Friday morning - we live in a very rural area, so I thought this was great service.The worms are shipped in dry peat moss - it is explained that it is better to ship them dry like this because they actually do much worse if the bedding is wet - it tends to freeze them in cold weather, and overheat in summer. The instructions say to add half a cup of water to the bag immediately, so I did this and I immediately saw lots and lots of very healthy, good sized worms. I didn't see a single dead one.It is important to have your worm bin or whatever you are going to use to compost already set up and ready to go before your worms arrive. I had purchased the Worm Factory 360 well ahead of time and had watched both their DVD and read the instruction manual, and had everything set up and ready to go, with a bit of food placed in each corner. I followed the directions and left them uncovered after transfer to the Worm Factory, and left a light on overnight. The worms clearly don't like light, so that encourages them to burrow. I don't know if it was was really necessary to keep the light on all night, because I checked about an hour after adding them, and the worms had already travelled all over the bin, and were clustered around the food in the corners. They were visibly plumper after just an hour, probably from rehydrating after shipment.I have had my worms for only a few days now, but could not be happier. I did read a few negative reviews, but I had nothing but a positive experience, and would order more if I needed them, and plan on recommending this company to anyone I can manage to convince to give vermiculture composting a try. I think it would be a great classroom project for a biology teacher or an elementary school teacher. I also highly recommend the informative little book Worms Eat My Garbage. I did notice slight differences in recommendations from one source to another, so I interpret this as meaning that there is no one right way to care for the worms, as long as you follow some general guidelines on feeding, hydration, and temperature.I am very excited about my new little hobby, and will give an update hopefully in a few months once I have hopefully gained a bit more experience.Addendum: December 6, 2012 - 2 months after my first order of a pound of worms, my vermiculture project is going great. The only problems I have had are the usual beginner ones of overfeeding the worms and getting the bins too wet, but this is easily corrected by cutting back on feeding and adding dry carbon sources like shredded cardboard and newspaper. The worms seem to be multiplying and doing their job.But my initial one pound of worms has not been sufficient to keep up with our food scraps - we are vegetarians and generate a lot of fruit peels, coffee grounds, etc. There is a tendency, I think, once you start doing this, to want to save all scraps and feed them all to the worms. My solution is that I bought a 14 gallon rubbermaid bin, and another 10 gallon bin for drainage, and have started a second composting bin to handle all our scraps. I think, if I had to do this over again, that I would have gone this simple and cheap route to begin with - the Worm Factory is working ok, but the material in the lower trays does tend to get pretty compressed and dense from all the trays stacked on top, and I'm not sure the air flow is that good, either. I really have to watch moisture levels and mix things up a bit.Anyway, to start my new bin, I ordered 2 more pounds of worms from Uncle Jims - I placed my order last Friday, and they shipped early Monday. Despite the fact that I live in very rural Arizona, the worms were in my post office by 11 a.m. on Wednesday - amazing. And they were amazingly dense and healthy. Just balls and balls and clumps and clumps of mostly plump, wiggly worms.Hopefully this will be my last worm order and my 3 pounds of worms will multiply and now keep up with all scraps without danger of overfeeding.Uncle Jims is awesome - highly recommended. Really hard to go wrong with them - they clearly state that if there are any problems, they will ship more worms immediately, free of charge. I will recommend to all my friends and neighbors - hopefully I can get some converts to try out this eco-friendly hobby. Thanks, Uncle Jims!