Humanure Worms?

My humanure bucket is growing worms within 4 or 5 days of being cleaned out. I use plenty of cover material and don't urinate in the bucket. Is there a solution to this problem? Seriously thinking about giving up on humanure. Thanks.

That sounds frustrating. I'm guessing you aren't talking earthworms. Are they fly larvae of some kind? Because if that is the case, I would suggest finding a well sealing lid to prevent flies from entering and laying eggs. Or are they some other sort of worms? If you could describe them or show pictures, that would probably make it easier for folks to give helpful answers.

If they are fly larvae, I have had this issue and been able to resolve it easily by cleaning the bucket thoroughly, getting a good sealed lid on it and also setting up a vinegar fly trap to knock back the population. So if this is your issue, I think you'll be able to solve it and not have to give up. If it's something else, hopefully a solution can be found!

Thanks for the response. The worms are definitely from fly larvae. So are you saying you take the toilet seat off and put a tight lid on it after using? Or are there toilet seats that seal well?

Heather Sharpe wrote:That sounds frustrating. I'm guessing you aren't talking earthworms. Are they fly larvae of some kind? Because if that is the case, I would suggest finding a well sealing lid to prevent flies from entering and laying eggs. Or are they some other sort of worms? If you could describe them or show pictures, that would probably make it easier for folks to give helpful answers.

If they are fly larvae, I have had this issue and been able to resolve it easily by cleaning the bucket thoroughly, getting a good sealed lid on it and also setting up a vinegar fly trap to knock back the population. So if this is your issue, I think you'll be able to solve it and not have to give up. If it's something else, hopefully a solution can be found!

Source

Something like this might work

Funny. Was about to see if I could find a thread talking about red wrigglers in humanure bucket toilets. This is not that.

And now I wonder if red wrigglers would solve your problem

Paul Ladendorf wrote:Thanks for the response. The worms are definitely from fly larvae. So are you saying you take the toilet seat off and put a tight lid on it after using? Or are there toilet seats that seal well?

Of course! You could do that, but I know I wouldn't, because it would be annoying to remove and replace each time. I would find a toilet seat that seals well or modify one to do so. Currently, I have a Separett urine diverter that came with this seat, which seals very well: https://separett.com/en/insulated-seat-300-blue
It has some downfalls though, namely being made of styrofoam, which is hard to clean and fragile. Also the lid being something you have to lift out and set down somewhere is not my favorite. It could be tricky to fit to a regular bucket set up, but maybe not. They have some other seats that are hinged, don't know how well they seal, as I haven't used them. The issue with the type of seats intended for water toilets is they have quite a gap created by those spacers on the underside (don't know if there's word for them). It's more than big enough for flies to fit through. I used to have one on the setup and that's when the fly issues occurred. My partner put a thick bead of silicone around the underside edge of the seat to create a gasket of sorts. We let it dry, then mounted the seat. This did keep flies out, but it was quite hard to clean. If other folks have found or created well sealing seats that function like a regular toilet seat, I would love to hear about it. Hope this helps, Paul!

This is an excellent tested system for humanure with very specific instructions of how they seal regular plastic seats to keep flies out:
http://www.omick.net/composting_toilets/barrel_toilet.htm

They also include a simple fly catching system which you might be able to adapt to your needs.

It includes the possibility of rather than just sealing the "sit-upon" part, lifting it up and having a special flat metal lid to seal the hole. If they don't show it, I would put a specific spot to hang the metal lid while using the toilet. This system would be difficult if the people needing to use it, aren't easily trained.

That said, is your humanure bucket in a "high fly zone"? Are there other things near by that are attracting flies? Is it that rather than having a "surplus of flies", you've got a  "deficit of spiders"?

Aside from using a lid when you set the full bucket aside, I wonder if the cover material being used is too coarse if you're talking about regular flies and already using lots of cover material.

I live in a house attached to our barn and there are lots of flies around.  We use small a flake animal bedding as our cover material and as long as we cover deposits in the toilet well enough and set a lid on the full buckets (not even tight) we have no issue at all. We do take it to the compost pile within about 5 days or so though.

I've used the Omick toilet sealing approach for years, but found the foam eventually becomes a sponge and more of an issue than its worth given my boys.  I eventually found it wasn't needed for us.

Vermicomposting MicroFlush Privy

I've been building these for about 5 years now, it's based on technology that is used to build toilets in Africa. A few of the local parks, and my farmlab have these. They aren't perfect. But, I have found using the worms is key.

One of the main reason "flys" get into the waste area is it isn't sealed, and/or their is no apex predictor to eat the larvae.

We've been playing around with ideas on making completely portable version of these.

My advice is, figure out how the flies are getting into your system, and fix that step. In the microflush system, we have a flap, that closes and uses a small amount of water to form a seal, that stop bugs from getting into the system when it's not being used.

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