Centipedes in the compost!!

[MaryMary]

Spring is here!

I have opened my compost bin and had a look inside. (I mostly ignore it over the winter.) I dug around in the top 8-10", and there seem to be A LOT of centipedes in there.

All I saw were centipedes and woodlice. (Woodlice are also known by the name "pill bug" or "roly poly bug.") I didn't see any worms in the top part. I've read a bit online, and centipedes eat earthworms.

How do I get rid of the centipedes? I can't have them eating my earthworms. And frankly, they just creep me out. They pinch!



HELP!!

 

[zigs]

They've moved in as the heap has finished composting, it's a nice habitat for them.

I had a load in the compost I was sieving earlier, put the bowl outside, wasn't long before the robin found it and ate the lot of them

 

[roadrunner]

I have tons of moles, they also eat tons of earthworms, yet I don't have any shortage of worms; I wouldn't worry about the centipedes -- predators keep the environment healthy, even if they eat a few beneficials.

As for the pill bugs...I have a sneaky suspicion that they are the unsung heroes of composting. But that's just my guess.

 

[Owdboggy]

Woodlice are definitely the unsung heroes (and heroines) of the compost heap. They feast on decaying material and help break it down. If you are really desperate, you can eat woodlice. Fried in butter they are supposed to taste like their relatives, shrimps.

 

[Tetters]

. If you are really desperate, you can eat woodlice. Fried in butter they are supposed to taste like their relatives, shrimps.

Slugs, they say are quite delicious in raspberry jelly with clotted cream too

 

[MaryMary]

I had a load in the compost I was sieving earlier, put the bowl outside, wasn't long before the robin found it and ate the lot of them

Thank you, zigs!! Yes, I will feed them to the birds! Wonderful idea.

I wouldn't worry about the centipedes -- predators keep the environment healthy, even if they eat a few beneficials.

I don't mind a few predators, it's all part of the cycle... It's the sheer quantity of them and the fact that I want to use that compost soon. I want to put my hands in the bin. In the bin, with the horrible, awful, nasty, pinching centipedes.







I'm afraid of them.

 

[Tetters]

@MaryMary - how big are the centipedes where you are? I get mixed up with centipedes and millipedes. When visiting Queensland a few years ago a millipede bit me - it was about the size of a finger, and I had to be hospitalised. The creatures we have in the UK are not so scary.

 

[zigs]

Centipedes are the flat orange ones, and millipedes are the dark ones with armour a bit like woodlice

 

[MaryMary]

@Tetters, they're not big. Somewhere between 2-3". ( 5-8 centimeters?)

I've always been afraid of them.

I don't know if I was actually pinched, but my earliest memory of them is associated with me screaming. And as soon as I see one, that's what I want to do!!

 

[roadrunner]

Also if they are millipedes then they're detritivores. As for there being so many....maybe it only seemed like there were a lot since it's been cold and they were all concentrated in a relatively small area.

When I hiked the Appalachian trail there were tons of these dark red millipedes, so many that you literally had to watch your step or you would smash one -- I heard someone refer to them as the "roadkill of the Appalachian Trail"



https://www.google.com/search?q=the...i=9AoPWdnQB4TXmwHvhbzwBg#imgrc=YCQwfL9RwsEsyM:

 

[roadrunner]

This is a cool picture of one of them...I wish it was mine, but I saw it on my link above.

 

[MaryMary]

I think that's a millipede. Centipedes have one pair of legs per segment, and millipedes have two. (I like the snake! )

The ones I have look more like this.

Found this while looking for that!

 

[roadrunner]

I think that's a millipede. Centipedes have one pair of legs per segment, and millipedes have two.

The ones I have look more like this.


View attachment 20230




Found this while looking for that!

View attachment 20231

Yes, it was a millipede and your pic is a centipede.

I also have those centipedes in my mulch, I see them as very beneficial...BTW, how big are your centipedes?

 

[MaryMary]

Somewhere between 2-3".

I accept that they are not the evil scourge my instinct tells me they are. From what I've read on Wiki, some of them even have mothers that love them. I can't help that I don't like them. If it was 5-10 of them, I'd just shake up the compost, and let them run away. But there's a colony of them in there! I think they've started having meetings.

 

[zigs]

I saw an 8 inch long one in Israel