worms or maggots in silage

Sorry this might get a little long winded, I do have a question to ask at the end.

I am lucky to be surrounded by farms so organic matter is free and delivered to your door all as part of the same service. A friend of mine has cattle and cuts the grass in summer making silage heap for winter feed which is then covered in a large black plastic sheet ready for winter housing.

In the winter the cattle come-in and live in the slatted sheds, these are floor panels with a pit underneath for the droppings. The silage is the cut off in slices fluffed-up and spread along retaining rails allowing the cattle to eat the silage.

As the cattle eat the silage down there will always be a small amount of feed each day/week that is fouled-up so this small amount of material is collected in true farming tradition and saved as a heap.
So here we have a heap of cut grass's and cattle droppings ( unlike straw bedding and droppings )

I have taken delivery of a heap that is 4/5 years old, this stuff is fantastic and full of worms in some fork full's there are almost balls of them this gear is truly well rotted and full of life, this is where my question comes thank god I hear you say.

on close inspection when opening some of the clumps on first sight they seem to be full of little white maggots all close together how can this be for a heap that is so old. We have been thinking are these just baby worms, as I don't know what baby worms look like I was hoping for some enlightenment. I can go into more detail but what to keep you guys awake

Leadbelly

 

I have had small threadlike 'maggots' in my wormery and apparently they are not harmful, more info here http://www.wormcity.co.uk/wormfaq.htm
You may have to scroll down and look for a sub heading 'What else is in my wormery', hope this is useful.

 

Hi LB, well done on being able to have acess to a nice amount of Organic material for your garden.:thumb: I have a Guneia Pig which is bedded down on newspaper ,sawdust,straw and then hay with extra hay for eating.All through the year I have collected all this material including the Guneia poo an have bagged it up and put it straight into my comosting bags over at our allotment,where it is mixed in with other material and then left to compost.

The other week when I was turning the composted stuff from one bag to another I found a couple of torpid maggots in amongst the material.I can only assume that sometime over the course of the summer months a fly has gone into the compost bags and has laid some of it's eggs on the poo or other material and thes have hatched out into maggots.All I did with these was to squish them as I didn't want them to stay in the bags over winter.

If you are not keen on the maggots then you can either kill them or chuck them out for the birds.In the winter months some farms find they have Pied Wagtails that visit so that if there are any bugs lurking around they can then pounce on them for food,because in the winter months their proper food is in decline due to the cold weather.

Baby worms look just like their adult counterparts but are quiet tiny to begin with but soon grow to be as big as their parents.

Hope this info helps you

 

Leadbelly they are probably Enchytraeid worms, which are closely related to earthworms (Annelida: Oligochaeta) rather than maggots and like earthworms are part of the decomposition process in a compost heap,they are handy if you are a fish keeper for feeding your fish,a picture of them would help to confirm this is what they are.

 

Thanks guys

Very helpful and has put my mind as ease, I have to say the link to wormcity and information there is a must.

On close inspection they do appear to be very small white worms, about 10mm ish long and are found in acid type conditions which is now understandable.

I have just made some raised beds in my tunnel will it be ok to add this material to the soil in them, will the acid be a problem and will the little white lads stay with the rotting matter or will they have an effect on the newly planted seeds etc.

AND WHAT ON EARTH IS DONATE AND CHECK ALL ABOUT I have looked in the notices and did not seem to find anything about the above terms, maybe with the worms I should take a closer inspection.

Thanks again for all your help

Russ.

 

Russ, we get quite a lot of white worms in our worm bin compost and use the compost in our tunnel without any problems.
If you are worried about acidity you can always add a little lime. If in doubt buy a soil test kit or little electronic tester.