Uncle Jim's Worm Farm 1000 Count Red Wiggler Composting Worms Mix for Garden Soil or Fishing | Pack of Compost Worms Improves Soil Structure and Quality for Healthier Gardens

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!

Lots of great little worms in this bag! Came in a sturdy bag to keep the worms damp and happy! They love my compost bin!

I get these every few years. The worms are healthy and ready to work. They have kept my garden prosperous and happy for many years.

So I ordered these in January, during single digit temperature nights. In other words, freezing cold temperatures.This isn't my first run with worms, as I used to keep them in my backyard, but moved across states, and had to leave them behind along with all the wonderful rich soil they worked so hard to create. So after moving, I decided to keep my worms both indoors, and outdoors. Mainly because they don't eat as fast in the winter, and I don't reduce the amount of vegetable waste I produce in the winter. So I decided to try a worm composting bin. I got my bin just a couple weeks before, but there were no worms to be found locally due to the weather, so I would have to wait until spring. That was until I decided to check on Amazon.I was a bit skeptical, and I couldn't figure out what idiot would ship worms in single digit temperatures, but nowhere did it say they wouldn't. I also read all the one star reviews, and saw that many folks had issues with dead worms arriving. But, I needed worms, and I didn't want to wait until spring. So I ordered them, fully expecting to have to contact Amazon Customer service and request a refund.I was notified on a Monday that they were shipped (they say they ship on Monday's to avoid them getting stuck in a shipping place over a weekend). I received my worms the following Friday. (I refused to pay extra for shipping, I figure if the option existed not to pay for that, then no reason to spend the money).When the box arrived, I immediately took pictures of it, it was very much... ummm... squished. I just can't think of a better word right now. Anyway, I was sure the worms didn't make it. They shipped all the way across the US to get to me, in freezing temperatures.I opened the box, and saw that the worms where in a burlap bag. There was a note included with my packing slip that said something along the lines of, your worms are dehydrated, so they will look small and pathetic, we dehydrate them so they don't freeze during shipping. They are thirsty, give them water immediately, put them in their new home, and give them four days to recover.I opened the bag, and sure enough, saw some very skinny pathetic looking worms. I thought no way are these red wigglers. But I followed the instructions, and I dumped the bag of skinny and pathetic worms into my new worm factory, gave them lots of compost, some water, put the lid on, and forgot about them for four days.I was amazed. The worms did recover. Not fully after four days, but certainly enough to convince me that they would be fine and will do their job well. After two weeks the worms showed no signs of stress. They were happily eating away my vegetable scraps. Today, I checked in on them to add more of my kitchen scraps, and I couldn't believe how many were in there, and it's barely been a month, and there are worm eggs everywhere, all over the avocado peel, all over the onion peel, everywhere.I am very pleased.Now, I did go back to read all the one star reviews, and noticed that there was a trend of around June of 2011. Perhaps shipping them in the winter is the smarter way to go, and not in the middle of summer when it gets too hot for them. But that's just a thought.And again, I didn't count the worms, and if there weren't a 1000 of them a month ago, there are definitely over a 1000 of them now.

I have ordered twice now from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. Both times the package was delivered quickly and the worms were alive. I will definitely be ordering from them again.