Reader Questions! #1

I am a new worm farmer and you have answered my questions before when no one else did, thank you.
My self, my wife,Tonsie and our friends Mike brown and his wife, Mary, formed a partnership and we are now worm farmers. We have a newly build worm bin that is 3 feet by 6 feet and we have 3 lbs. of European night crawlers. The bin is made out of plywood above ground and is 24 inches deep.
I did’nt say we were big worm farmers at this time but we will be.
I have a couple of questions for you, I hope you have time to answer.
1. How can I seperate the castings from the vermicompost to get pure worm castings? (I saw your machine, us geting one like that would be difficult at best.)
2. We plan on selling both bait worms and castings. How many lbs. of worms will we need before we can start marketing the worms?
3. How many bins 3? by 6? will we need to start producing enough castings to start selling?
4. I guess I am asking you how many lbs of worms do we keed before we really are “Worm farmers”?
5. I plan on ordering more worms in September, if I order from you how am I assured that I am getting pure European Night Crawlers and not a mixture of Reds and Euros? (They will be shipped to Washington State.)

thanks
Rod

Rod has asked some Great questions, That I and alot of other worm farmers thought of before they started in the worm business.(I am sure) I will try and answer these questions as well as I can, He has asked five questions, I will asnwer them in order that he asked them in order from 1-5
1) Seperating worm castings is a job in its self, I seperated my worm castings by hand for a year or so before I got my Fanning Mill, even with the fanning mill the vermicompost needs to be on the dry side before the fanning mill can do the Great job that it does. So it really depends on how much investment you would like to, or can put into the business, you can also buy a rotating worm harvester, that is fairly costly. the final worm castings needs to be screened through a 1/8″ screen.
2) This is a hard one to answer, I would try to keep a stock of 100 lbs of worms, just for worm casting production alone, If you are planning on being a player in the castings business.
As far as how many worms to sell worms, It would be nice to have a stock of 100 lbs or more, if you get very busy, this # is not very much.
3)Your worm bins 3 by 6 by 2 feet deep are a great size for worm beds, not too big, not too small, A very nice size to work with.
When stocking a worm bed like this,the rule is 1 lb of composting worms to 1 sq ft of surface area in your bin, so the surface area of your 3? by 6? worm bed is 18 sq feet.
So you should be stocking this bed with 18 lbs of worms, If you would like to start slow, I still recommend starting with at least 10 lbs.
4) When are we worm farmers?? haha..
When do you think you are a worm farmer? I think if you have worm beds 3? by 6? you are already a worm farmer,I am sure I have alot of customers with a few pounds of worms calling them selves worm farmers, this is a matter of opinion depending on each individual.
5) I have purchased my original stock from reputable worm farmers, They have been in the business for a long time. I do mix my worms (reds and euros) for casting production only, To keep the worms seperated as to each breed, the 2 breeds need to be a far distance away from each other, along with well made beds to keep the 2 breeds apart. Also another thing to keep in mind is, when making outdoor beds and your plans are to maintain the pure breed of worm, you need to have something between the native worms and the soil that you have just made the bed in, remember your native worms will enjoy eating the bedding you added to your nice pure breed of worms you are going to add to that bed, thus mixing the worms up.

I hope this answers some questions, I would really like to hear back on this one, There are alot of great ideas and methods of worm farming out there, So lets hear your comments

Jeff (The Friendly Worm Guy)

Written by Jeff on August 3rd, 2008 with 3 comments.
Read more articles on About Earthworms and Composting with composting worms and News and Reader Questions and Worm Stories.

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