Worm Review: NaturesGoodGuys.com
When we originally started our worm farm here at Worm Empire, we began with two separate bins containing 1lb of red wiggler worms each. We started small while we figured out what we were doing, to make sure we weren’t buying worms just to kill them with our ignorance.
A few months later, and our worms are still alive. As an experiment, we’re going to order a few more pounds from several different worm suppliers in order to find out who provides the highest quality worms, and doesn’t scam/skimp on the quantity. We’ve also heard stories about people buying a batch of red wigglers (eisenia fetida) and then finding out they received a bunch of indian blues (preionyx excavatus). We want to look out for that as well, as the two species do not interbreed and have some different behavioral characteristics, and we just prefer the reds.
Also it should be obvious from our outstanding reputation for honesty and integrity here at Worm Empire, but Nature’s Good Guys has no clue we’re writing a review about them and they didn’t send us these worms for free or anything like that. Anyway, back to the review…
NaturesGoodGuys.com
As of April 2024, these guys are in the top 5 results when you google “buy red wigglers” or something like that. While we’re not planning to just buy worms from all the big companies, we did want to try these guys out in order to offer a review to the many people who stumble across them when worm shopping.
I couldn’t find a bunch of backstory about them, but it seems like they’ve been in business for about 7 years, and (understandably) got a lot bigger around the start of COVID. If you search around on sites like Reddit, you’ll find that they have really positive feedback compared to some of the other big bug-companies out there.
Red Worms
While they sell many different types of bugs, we’re going to focus here on the red wigglers since I don’t really know about the other critters. They sell tiny bags of 300 up to big bags of 2,100. It’s kind of interesting that they sell in 1,200 worm and 2,100 worm increments instead of the typical “1lb” and “2lb” bags - I’m not really sure why.
Here's a good sign - they specifically call out that their red worms are eisenia fetida, aka Red Wigglers. This is in contrast to some of the other big companies that sell vaguely-named “red worms” or a “red wiggler mix”, which in this humble worm farmer’s opinion is a shady way of saying you’re just getting a random mixture of reds and indian blues. Of course just because they say eisenia fetida doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what is going to be in your shipment either. Thankfully though, it turns out that is exactly what NaturesGoodGuys delivered.
An Order of Worms please…
We placed the order for 1lb of worms on Sunday afternoon, and they arrived at noon on Wednesday. They were shipped through UPS two-day. We paid:
$36 for 1,200 red wigglers
$15 for 2-day shipping (UPS)
I’ll say this for NaturesGoodGuys - they know how to box up worms. The box itself had big holes in the side for air flow. The worms were packed in a breathable bag and wrapped in soft brown paper. The paper was soft and thin - they didn’t appear to be suffocating.
The bedding they were packed in was fairly fluffy and not too wet, not too dry. Definitely a soft and breathable bedding, maybe some kind of peat moss mixture. The worms seemed to like it, and they were fairly responsive when we started to dump out the package.
One good way we’ve found to determine if there’s a good quantity of worms in a shipment is to just reach in and scoop up a handful of bedding. Thankfully we came back with a handful of worms. After spreading out the bedding (on a plastic lid I found) it became apparent that the product description from NaturesGoodGuys was accurate - there were definitely over a thousand worms in the bag.
Red Wigglers or Indian Blues?
This was our first time ordering worms sight-unseen, and from our research one of the biggest concerns was whether this package would contain pure red wigglers, or a mixture of different worm species. Based on an hour or two of google and youtube research, the ways to tell were:
Perhaps the most obvious sign, the clitellum of a red wiggler bulges out, whereas an indian blues’ is flush with the body.
The clitellum of an indian blue is pretty close to the front of the worm, but on a red wiggler, it is about ¼ of the way down the worm’s body.
The tip of the red wiggler’s tail has a yellow tinge, the indian blue does not.
A few other signs, like the indian blue being slightly skinnier, more energetic, different colors…
I’m not a wormologist or anything but it seemed like the easiest way to tell was those first three bullets. After plucking about 100 worms out of the bedding, brushing off the dirt, and giving them a look-over, it was pretty clear that Nature’s Good Guys had sent over pure red wigglers. If there were any imposters amongst them, they were hiding pretty well.
Check out the screenshots I took from this reddit post:
Do you see on the right, the clitellum (the whitish part) is way up near the “head” of the indian blue worms? And on the left, on the red wigglers, it is further down and much more prominent? For me that was the easiest distinction. The coloring of my worms was much darker which I am guessing comes from the color of the bedding they arrived in, although I suppose I could see some yellow tint on the tails of the worms as well. The worms I received (below) are the real deal.
Final Worm Score
As I mentioned earlier, Worm Empire has a reputation for integrity that it needs to uphold, so these scores are objective and not at all arbitrary:
Worm Quality: 9/10. Pure red wigglers. Showed up alive. Can’t ask for much more than that.
Worm Quantity: 9/10. It seems like there’s 1,200 of them as promised.
Packaging: 9/10. The design on the bag is fun and there’s some stickers and pamphlets in the box for you to look at. The packaging seems cozy for the worms and I think they appreciate it.
Shipping: 9/10. Showed up in 2.5 days. Really can’t ask for more.
Overall score: 9/10. I highly recommend these guys if you’re on the market for some red wiggler worms, and you want your worms to show up alive and in the quantity that you ordered.
Have comments, questions, or just want to let us know about your experiences with Nature's Good Guys? Just hit us up on social media or send us an email!