Breeding worms in open ground. Breeding dung worms at home

Did you know that such an unusual activity as breeding worms can be very useful for you? profitable business? It turns out that worms are very useful creatures! Not only do their life processes produce something very useful and indispensable for agriculture, which is called vermicompost, or, more understandably, vermicompost, but the worms themselves are a very popular product! Are you surprised? Well, remember who really loves worms and is great at catching them? Of course, fish, which a person eats to replenish the body with such a useful substance as phosphorus. Therefore, by starting to breed these useful creatures, you will always have regular customers interested in seeing your business flourish!

In order for your business to truly flourish, you need to create a mini-farm for these beneficial worm-like creatures. The right one will help you with this making a vermicomposter, in which your worms will “live” and produce “life products” so necessary for your business.

If you have decided to start this business, keep in mind that to start you will need no less than $100! It is for this amount that you can buy your first ever box of... worms, which can later bring you, if not millions, then thousands of dollars for sure!

First of all, you need to purchase containers where your worms will be “housed”. Plastic boxes sold in stores labeled “for meat” are perfect for this purpose.

The next stage is making a lot of holes in the new, smooth, solid plastic trays! It is better to drill holes with a drill with a diameter of 5 mm, so as not to damage the tray, since plastic is a fragile material and can easily crack under pressure. But in order to know where and what to drill, you must first, using a marker and ruler, mark with dots the places to be drilled. The ideal option is when the holes are at a uniform distance from each other of 25 mm. Using a regular awl, lightly “punch” the marks, thanks to this the drill will fit exactly in Right place and will not slide to the side. Having received a container with a holey bottom, we move on to the next stage.

We move on to the proper preparation of the lowest tray, intended for collecting a very powerful fertilizer called “vermichay”. To do this, take another plastic box, the same size as the previous ones, only in it we will not drill many holes, but only one! The hole should be at the bottom of the plastic container, right next to the sides (as shown in the picture), into which we will insert a ½ inch ball valve.

Prepare in advance a faucet of a suitable size, as well as a steel washer and a secondary plastic gasket to seal the connection. We carefully drill out the hole with a drill, then for this purpose we use a cutter and layer by layer we expand the hole to the desired size. In order not to overdrill the hole, try on the faucet; it should fit tightly through the hole. Having achieved the desired result, install the faucet into the plastic tray.

The trays are prepared, let's move on to making stands for the trays with our own hands

We will need a “furniture board” with a thickness of 1.8 cm and dimensions of 125x40.5 cm. We need to cut this board into two equal halves. It is best to use a jigsaw - the work will go faster and more accurately! After this, mark on one of the resulting boards, using a marker and a compass (compasses can be replaced by saucers, plates, etc.) a semicircle, which will also need to be carefully cut out (see picture)! It is better to round the corners and sand them thoroughly.

Our structure must stand, therefore, armed with a shovel handle (so as not to think for a long time and not look for suitable material) and a hacksaw, we saw off four bars of 25 cm each.

These bars will serve as the legs of your homemade vermicomposter. On each “leg” we mark the center with a marker, and use an awl to “punch” the hole. After this, we take a drill with a 4 mm drill in our hands and carefully, without unnecessary movements, so that the block does not split, we drill a hole for the fixing screw.

Now it's time to put the structure together. To do this, evenly, near each corner of the resulting boards, using the same marker, we mark the places where the legs of the future vermicomposter will be attached. Insert a 5 mm drill bit into the drill and drill a hole for the fixing screw.

We screw the legs into our vermicomposter

Our vermicomposter is “ALMOST” ready! It remains to take care of proper ventilation for our design. “Proper” ventilation implies a system of ventilation holes in which the substrate will be sufficiently moist and will not be subjected to excessive ventilation, which will result in the substrate drying out and the death of everyone in it. As they say - the golden mean! So, back to our holey plastic containers. We take strong “gray” tape (designed for sealing ventilation connections) and carefully seal the holes at the top of the drawers. All except one on each end side - we will prudently cover them with a mosquito net so that no insects disturb the quiet, peaceful life of the future “tenants”. To make the mesh fit more tightly, the side of the containers should be lightly treated with a “hedgehog”, this is a kind of attachment for a drill. After this, the mesh, placed on the glue, will literally grow to the container.

In order for the “tenants” of your structure to live cozy and comfortable, try to get a non-woven fabric, which you should use to line the bottom of the perforated containers and the top of the entire contents of the boxes. So, we cover the bottom of the “holey” container with a non-woven fabric, fill the purchased substrate with worms, add a nutrient medium for the worms (leaves, sawdust, paper) on top and again carefully cover everything with a non-woven fabric. It is advisable to cover the top drawer with a lid; the lid can be purchased at hardware store, or make it yourself from ordinary plywood.

After placing live goods in a self-made vermicomposter, do not forget to monitor indicators in the room where the unit is installed, such as temperature and humidity. The temperature should be between 15-25 degrees Celsius and humidity 75-85%. These are precisely the optimal conditions under which worms quickly reproduce and carry out normal life activities.

Breeding worms at home is a profitable business, but no less troublesome! Demand for worms and the fertilizer they produce begins in early spring and ends in autumn (and that’s just in agriculture)! What to do with them all winter? Where to put this constantly multiplying, swarming mess?

There is also a way out and it’s quite profitable! It would be more accurate to say that there are several ways out! One of them is to sell worms to fishermen - the fish love them very much and, oddly enough, in winter they also want to eat well! The second option would be to supply worms to pet stores as a complete and environmentally friendly product. clean eating for fish, birds, and all lovers of natural meat. So don’t worry - if there was material, but where to put it - there will always be a way out!

Considering the number of people who want to relax by the pond with a fishing rod, breeding worms can be very effective business. Today, earthworms are used not only as fish food, but also in farming. They can significantly increase soil productivity, which makes them a popular product in large quantities.

Considering the number of people who want to relax by the pond with a fishing rod, breeding worms can be a very effective business

Therefore, if you take a large-scale approach to implementing this project at home, then breeding worms will turn out to be a profitable undertaking. The implementation of such technology will not require special skills, experience and knowledge from the owner of the mini-farm. And in terms of preliminary costs, breeding such animals at home requires minimal initial investment, which is very profitable in comparison with other types of business today. Now we need to take a closer look at the methods of breeding worms for fishing and using the products of their vital activity in the process of making a profit.

To start growing and breeding earthworms at home, you will need to create an optimal temperature regime and habitat for them. This will require constant temperature at +15…+25°С, availability of sufficient food, air humidity at 80%. There are species that actively begin to mate and reproduce in large temperature ranges (within +10...+30°C). If the indicator drops below +4°C, the worms will hibernate, but exceeding the temperature above +35°C can cause their death.

Earthworms today are used not only as fish food, but also in farming

In addition, you need to carefully monitor what you feed the earthworms. Feeding is carried out using the following common ingredients:

food waste;
fallen leaves;
hay;
fermented manure;
tea leaves;
eggshell.

For beginners, it is important to remember that Not all types of worms are equally good at raising at home. Therefore, before you start growing worms, you need to become familiar with their “performance”, the minimum requirements for habitat, nutrition, and other important characteristics.

The most suitable worms for a beginning entrepreneur are Californian or prospector worms. To grow them, you need minimal conditions, but in terms of effectiveness they can exceed all your wildest expectations. After all, 1 adult prospector is capable of breeding up to 500 offspring per year. Other types of worms can only dream of such productivity.

In order for worm farming to truly generate good income, the business owner may be required to comply with some additional points, in particular:

combine this activity with other types of farming;
to care for the plantation, use vermicompost from the excrement of domestic animals (in particular, cattle);
The grown product will be actively sold to neighboring farmers and fishing enthusiasts.

Breeding worms at home (video)

Potential consumers

Of course, at the beginning of your journey you will need to outline a business plan, determine the costs at the start of the project and calculate the potential consumers of your products. This will make it possible to fully plan the size of the upcoming business, select a site for work, the type of worms for breeding, as well as the final product that you will receive. This could be:

the earthworm itself;
vermicompost from worms;
special worm tea.

If you open your own small point of sale of this product in portions, you will ensure a flow of customers all year round. You can enter into an agreement with a specialized fishing store and supply products in bulk. In this case, its cost will be slightly cheaper, but the breeder will have lower rental costs. commercial premises, maintaining sellers, there will be less loss of your own free time. As a rule, in the end, when calculating the income and expense parts, almost the same amount of profit will come out in both cases.

The next direction is when a worm grown by yourself is further processed into fertilizer. It may seem that this is unprofitable and unpromising, but in fact it is not so. The final product is actively used in gardening, in summer cottages, in specialized flower shops where highly concentrated plant fertilizer is required. Soil fertilized in this way significantly increases its fertile characteristics.

The cultivation of earthworms is actively supported by representatives of numerous pet stores, where they are used as food. For feeding fish in specialized fish farms, in the process of improving the soil of exotic plants by saturating it with special worm tea, the product is also necessary.

All this gives a very real understanding of how such a business can be effectively run.

The most common buyers of live dung worms are fishermen

A little about technology

Before you start breeding unusual “pets”, it is advisable to gain a full understanding general technology, how this will all happen, how much time and resources will be required for these purposes.

Growing begins with simple preparation of the place where your charges will live and reproduce. Such a farm must have not only prepared soil, stable temperature and humidity, but also worms specially selected for these purposes. A worm farm should consist of adults, cocoons and fry, which must be placed in a “house” initially prepared for life.

To maintain normal living conditions for worms, the constant presence of fresh compost will be required, which they will gradually process into vermicompost. In this environment, it will be necessary to constantly monitor their reproduction, behavior, and monitor their general condition.

If the created conditions are favorable, then within a few months it will be possible to begin collecting the first results of your labor in the form of living individuals, fertile layer as fertilizer, and worm tea. For worm farming to be successful, the work schedule should be scheduled in such a way as to give the remaining individuals the opportunity to restore the population and increase the resources already realized. For this purpose, it is necessary to monitor the constant availability of food litter, a sufficient amount of soil, and conditions that activate mating and reproduction.

You need to understand that the soil for breeding worms cannot be completely homogeneous. As a rule, it consists of 3 main layers:

the upper one, which serves to feed the worms;
middle, where their permanent habitat is located;
the lower one, where waste products of worms accumulate (vermicompost, worm tea).

Common types of worms for breeding

Earthworms used as the main product for propagation can be divided into several most actively used species. Each of them has its own advantages, because of which it is chosen as the main “actor”.

To begin with, we should consider ordinary "local" worms. Catching them does not require any equipment or effort. They quickly adapt to the created living conditions; because of this, their reproduction begins earlier, which makes it possible to quickly receive benefits from running process. True, there is also a small drawback here - such worms have a reduced vital activity, which is much inferior to special “pedigreed” individuals.

Next we should consider individuals of the Californian red worm. This is a very popular and productive species. When purchasing, you should carefully select the livestock (it should be dark red in color). Here you need to remember that for a normal breeding process, the breeding stock should be kept at a level of at least 1500 individuals. A small disadvantage of this species is that if the temperature drops below +10°C, the likelihood of losing the entire livestock increases.

Worm prospector for home breeding today it is considered the most popular type. Basically, it is a direct competitor to the California worm described above. It has a fairly high activity, develops quickly, reproduces well, and stays freely in the temperature range from +9 to +28°C. Provides fairly high productivity in the process of processing the substrate (about 60% of vermicompost per 1000 kg of “input material”).

Necessary containers and accessories

To start producing worms at home, you need to have a minimum number of tools and equipment. For this you may need shovels, buckets, a wheelbarrow, scales, a sieve, as well as things such as racks, instruments that help determine the acidity of the soil, a thermometer, and special boxes.

Among general rules, which should not be forgotten, it is recommended to remember the following points:

the nursery should have an area, based on the fact that for every 1000 adult individuals, at least a square meter of soil is needed;
the air temperature in the room where pets will be kept should not fall below +4°C;
containers should have a minimum depth of about 30 cm, and it is advisable to use wood, cardboard, and in rare cases plastic as a base.

If simultaneously in one place it is planned to grow large quantity worms, then you can use a plastic container, which is initially equipped with a sufficient number of small holes to allow air ventilation. If you do not plan to raise a large family in one place, wooden and cardboard boxes are quite suitable.

As an alternative, old bathtubs, refrigerators, and special containers can be used for a base of residence. We must not forget that worms love moist soil; a regular plastic watering can can replace rain. The concentration of water in the soil must be dosed, because its excessive amount has a negative impact on the life activity of individuals.

Below we will tell you in detail how to breed worms, how to care for them and get a good income.

To be able to work with large wholesale buyers, your enterprise must be officially registered. The most common options are individual entrepreneurs and LLCs.

In our case, the simplest one is IP, registration will take about a month and require minimal cash investments($70-90).

Worm breeding technology

It is necessary to organize the cultivation of worms in several stages:

Preparing the premises in which your “wards” will live;
Purchase of livestock for rearing;
Preparing “housing” and moving the purchased “family” into it;
Caring for “pets”;
Reproduction;
Collection of vermicompost, vermicompost, sale of adult worms.

Then another layer of nutrient bedding is added and the whole process starts all over again.

Is it worth buying worms?

You can purchase invertebrates at any vermifarm, which is not difficult to find via the Internet. The average cost of a thousand heads is 22-40 dollars, depending on the chosen type and volume of purchase. For a business to be profitable, you need to start with at least 2-3 thousand worms.

If you are going to breed ordinary rainwater, you don’t even have to spend money on buying them and take them in the yard of your own home. First you need to dig a not very deep hole and pour manure or moistened rotting leaves into it. Then the “bait” is covered with a board or cardboard. Within a week, the first invertebrates will appear in this place. They must be transferred to the box along with the soil in which they lived.

The best types of worms

Each type is good in its own way. By ensuring proper climatic conditions and good food for your wards, you can breed several species at once.

Earthworm

It has the best adaptation: both to climate change and to life on a closed farm. But his activity, compared to other “breeds,” is somewhat lower. It produces fewer offspring and forms vermicompost more slowly than its “brothers.”

California Red

One of the most popular types, due to its mobility and rapid reproduction. California red produces excellent vermicompost and is not very picky about food. But it is sensitive to temperature. If it drops below +10 degrees, you may lose your livestock.

Prospector worm

An excellent choice for beginners. This species is active, quickly processes food and substrate. The prospector feels good at a temperature of +9…+28 degrees.

Worm breeding room

A worm farm requires a minimum of space, literally a few square meters. You can arrange it in a garage, cellar, attic or outbuilding.

Even a summer cottage can become a springboard for growing invertebrates. In this case, it is necessary to comply with some requirements:

To prevent business from “freezing” in winter, you need to take care of heating in advance;
The room should not be too humid, but not dry either;
The farm should be located in a quiet place, away from the road, noise, and vibrations.

Housing for worms

For comfortable keeping of pets, it is best to build special boxes. You can make them yourself from wooden or plastic containers. The wall thickness of the wooden box must be at least 25 mm. Standard nursery parameters are 1x2x0.5 meters. You need to make holes at the bottom of the box to collect humus and tea, and place a tray. The top of the nursery is covered with a lid with holes.

To save space, boxes are installed on racks that can be made from metal profiles.

There are several more ways to build a home for worms with your own hands:

From an old refrigerator. It is necessary to remove the internal contents from it, make ventilation holes in the walls and door, and install the refrigerator with the door up and at a slight angle.
From cardboard box . The simplest and cheapest option, plus in the box, due to the natural thin material, there is very good air circulation and enough oxygen for invertebrates. As soon as the “creeping workers” begin to feed on pieces of damp cardboard, the box needs to be replaced.
From a plastic container. Any plastic container can become a “house”: from a flower pot to a basin. The main thing is not to forget about ventilation and collection of humus and vermicelli.

If you wish, you can purchase a fully equipped vermicomposter, its cost is about $200.

Conditions for growing worms

Pets should be housed based on the norm of 1000-1500 individuals per cubic meter. This will ensure optimal nutrition and substrate processing. There are certain requirements for the maintenance and care of these creatures.

The soil

The substrate must consist of three layers. The top layer is the most nutritious, that is, the soil should be enriched with organic matter. Invertebrates spend most of their time in the middle layer.

And worm tea and vermicompost accumulate in the bottom. Worms will reproduce well only in high-quality soil. How to prepare it?

Choose a container to contain it and fill it halfway with humus, add a little shredded newspaper. The mixture needs to be slightly moistened, the total humidity level should be no more than 80%;
A few days later, depressions are made in the soil, where the individuals settle along with part of the soil in which they lived before transplantation;
The soil is leveled, moistened, the home is covered with cardboard and left for a couple of days;
When the “residents” adapt, you can add food to the soil.

Eat great way check the quality of the substrate. Place 50-100 individuals in a small container with prepared soil and observe them for 24 hours. If they are alive and remain mobile, it means that the acidity and moisture of the soil suits them. The required acidity level is 6.5-7.5 pH. Tops, straw, and sawdust increase the acidity level. Reduced - limestone, chalk, ground eggshells.

Temperature for keeping worms

These creatures feel best at temperatures +15…+25 degrees. Critical indicators: +4 degrees (individuals will hibernate or die), at +36C and above, invertebrates also die.

At the right temperature, your wards will reproduce well and produce vermicompost.

Feeding the worms

Feeding should be done once a week. The food is placed on soil 10 centimeters thick. Place a piece of newspaper or toilet paper on top of the food. As soon as your charges start eating it, you can feed them again and lay a new layer of compost.

These creatures feed on rotting organic matter.. The diet of worms must be formed from the following products:

Plant remains: peels, vegetables (boiled), potato peelings, etc.;
Bakery;
Ground eggshells;
Food waste;
Water with remaining kefir or sour cream;
Tea leaves;
Straw, leaves, grass;
Cow and horse manure, chicken droppings. It is important that the manure is of medium freshness and contains many nutrients. Very fresh manure will raise the soil temperature and the livestock will die.

Do not use under any circumstances meat scraps, citrus fruit scraps, fruit and vegetable peels.

Reproduction of worms

Proper worm management involves creating favorable conditions for their reproduction. They begin to give birth at the age of two to three months.

Over the course of 4 months, cocoons are formed, ripening in a few weeks. One cocoon means 15-20 new worms. If we roughly calculate the dynamics of reproduction, it turns out that in six months the number of invertebrates in one box will increase 50 times.

It is very important to regularly place individuals in new containers. If the population density is high, they will simply stop reproducing.

Equipment for breeding worms

Equipment required for growing:

Boxes or other containers;
Shelving;
Sieve;
Wheelbarrow, shovel and pitchfork, bucket;
Scales, thermometer, device for measuring soil temperature and acidity.

Selling worms

Your farm on several points at once: from the sale of live individuals, the sale of vermicompost and vermicelli. “Young growth” and vermicompost are collected for sale every month and a half. Who should I sell to?

Live specimens to pet stores for animal feed, fish farms, and breeding;
Vermicompost and vermichay farms for fertilizing the soil and feeding plants.

You can create your own website and engage in retail sales on one's own.

Costs and profits

If you equip containers for growing yourself, then the main costs will be inventory (no more than $100) and the purchase of three thousand individuals to begin with ($80-100).

Materials for the “houses”, food, soil will require no more than $50. Preparing food does not require any special expenses. In total, including registration, the investment amount will be about $350.

For 3 thousand individuals, two to three cubic meters of soil are needed. Every month and a half they will produce about 30 thousand worms for sale ($900) and approximately 1000-1500 kg of vermicompost ($700-800). You can earn about $600 more by selling vermicha. Monthly income will be $1500-2000.

Growing worms is quite simple and very! These creatures live a long time, are unpretentious in many respects, and the costs of setting up a vermifarm are minimal.

Gold, but not that

Many have not even noticed how the ordinary earthworm, which causes disgust among many, has turned into His Majesty the king of vegetable gardens. What did our hero do to deserve such an honor? And the fact that, in collaboration with a great and powerful army of microorganisms (and other earthly living creatures), it can very effectively turn waste into income. And along the way, he still manages to do a huge amount of good deeds for Mother Nature and for us sinners.

According to statistics, when processing a ton of gold ore, 2 g of gold is extracted, and such production is considered profitable. And a ton of manure processed by worms into vermicompost can provide a profit equivalent to at least 60 g of gold (and if everything is managed correctly, even more). But this is a saying. A fairy tale lies ahead.

Vermicompost produced by worms differs significantly in composition and effectiveness from humus fermented by microorganisms alone. And at the same time, the effectiveness of vermicompost is 10-20 times higher than that of manure.

H all because it contains almost all micro- and macroelements (plus other biologically active substances) necessary for the full development of plants in a balanced and most accessible form.

Well, now it’s time to move on to specifics - what exactly needs to be done so that the little helpers start working. And, believe me, the story about this is no less fascinating than the previous one.

Essentially, each worm is a miniature but extremely efficient biofactory that produces the most valuable products. The Lord arranged everything in such a way that, entering and passing through the body of the worm, the harmful pathogenic microflora initially contained in the soil or manure is neutralized, and the beneficial one is multiplied. In nature, how does everything happen? Whoever is stronger wins.

So it is here: getting into environment, beneficial microorganisms of vermicompost suppress harmful ones and trigger the mechanism of natural and rapid degeneration D Vermicompost also has a number of positive properties: it structures the soil, accumulates moisture in it, prevents wind and water erosion, reduces the ripening time of plants, is powerful and harmless to plants and people fungicidal properties.

House for worms

There are two ways to turn worms into your helpers. The first, the simplest: create optimal conditions for their reproduction in the soil. The main thing is not to poison the plantings with chemicals and mulch abundantly with organic matter, which is both a home and food for worms (judging by the letters, our gardeners are already doing this very successfully, which is sincerely pleasing). The second method is for those who have the opportunity to extract and accumulate organic matter in large quantities. In this case, it makes sense to organize a vermi-farm with a production volume according to your capabilities and desires. At the dacha or on a peasant farm, this will not take much time, but the benefits will be colossal.

I made my worm like this

I found a site on the site, raised 10-20 cm above the soil level and with a slope of up to 5° to drain excess moisture. I laid a metal mesh and a gravel cushion on it (this provided both drainage and protection from moles). Then I built a box from scrap materials (see picture). I used wooden pallets of the same size.

I fastened them together with self-tapping screws, plus I screwed boards with a cross section of 25×100 mm around the perimeter (for rigidity) on top and along the outer sides of the box. For ease of work, I made the walls about 1 m high. The width of the box is about 1.5 m. A separate topic is the arrangement of the bottom of the worm chamber. I made it in the form of a shallow tray with a slope and lined it with a durable thick film to collect excess moisture. Under it, at the bottom point of the tray, I placed a V-shaped tray with rounded edges (to protect the film from cuts) 15-20 cm wide and 50-60 cm long.

Why do you even need a worm bin?

And to drain excess moisture into a 200-liter plastic barrel buried in the ground with a wide lid, in which a drainage hole with a diameter of 15 mm is drilled in the center for the rod of the float indicator of filling (this lid is located above the soil level so that it does not flood with rain and flood waters).

For the same purpose, above the barrel, obliquely towards the box, I installed a screen made from scrap materials. The barrel was also tightly sprinkled and compacted with sand so that there were no gaps between its walls and the ground; if water gets in there, everything will float up like a float. In the box, in the place where the liquid is discharged, for filtration, I placed a fine-mesh mesh in the form of a pillow, filled with small pebbles or expanded clay.

To avoid rapid rotting of the wooden elements of the box from contact with vermicompost, I thoroughly soaked them with an antiseptic before assembly ( my first worm lasted three years).

Now, based on many years of experience, I can note that if finances allow, then asbestos-cement or wood-chip-cement boards with a thickness of 10-20 mm will be an excellent material for the walls.

And the side walls of the worm pit, in order to avoid bursting with humus, every 1 m it is advisable to tie them through special spacers with thick knitting wire, which is used when casting foundations. Or you can weld the frame of the box from a metal corner - “five tens” (coating them with a protective agent against corrosion) and attach the walls to this structure.

To make it easier to unload the worm, the rear end wall can be made removable or hinged, in the form of a double-leaf door. This design, if done carefully, will last a very long time and will more than pay for all costs.

A good, durable wormhole can also be made from perforated red bricks laid on edge. In this case, the walls will allow air into the substrate, which will increase the efficiency of compost processing. If desired, you can make a canopy over the worm to protect it from the sun and precipitation. Or place it in a greenhouse - the active period of operation without heating will last at least two months (in Belarusian conditions). So, the goal has been set. A house for worms has been built. In the next tale we will talk about technology.

Do-it-yourself vermicompostarium or nothing extra

So, the house for the worms has been built, a twinkle has appeared in the eyes, an itch has appeared in the hands, too, it’s time to get down to business. Task number one: create comfortable conditions for our great workers. My next fairy tale may seem too abstruse (here, they say, it almost belongs in a textbook), but believe me, it is worth reading it carefully. There will be benefits in any case; you can’t do everything in the garden by eye.

So, I regularly chop, mix, moisten, and put the compost components for vermicultivation (as well as for producing regular humus, if you’re too lazy to bother with worms).

As a result, the compost self-heats to 40-80°. The fermentation time of the substrate depends on its composition and ambient temperature and ranges from 20 days to 13 months. Its ripening is accelerated by heat, moderate moisture, tedding, blowing with air, horse manure additions, and covering with film. Slow down cold, excess moisture, compaction, and additions of pig manure.

Everything seems to be clear, but how can one more accurately (as they say, according to science) determine that the substrate is ripe? But we need to determine whether it has a neutral acid-base reaction (if we’re being really smart, it’s pH 6.8-7.2): that is, litmus paper should not change its color when it gets wet in the moisture of the compost.

If the environment is acidic (litmus turns red), you need to water the compost with chalk or lime milk and sprinkle with dolomite flour.

If, on the contrary, the medium is alkaline (the paper turns blue), add peat, grass, chicken or pig manure. The optimal moisture content of compost is much easier to determine: if, when you squeeze the substrate in your fist, moisture appears between your fingers but does not flow, then everything is in order.

Fresh manure should not be used. As a last resort, you need to add straw (30-50%) to it, since it contains excess proteins. The ideal option is manure that has lain for more than two years.

In this regard, I cannot help but touch upon one more point. If everything is done strictly according to science, then the substrate should be prepared at the rate of 200 g (for production outdoors) or 400 g (for production in a warm room) per worm per year.

This may seem unnecessary to some, but the figures given can be considered as a guide.

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Every fisherman knows that fish prefer dung worms to earthworms. Breeding dung worms at home is very convenient and profitable, especially for avid fishermen.

Excellent bait in sufficient quantity will be at hand at any time of the year and at any time of the day. The costs of breeding worms, feeding them and other care are minimal, but the results are maximum.

Box

Worms can be bred in a box. This can be any plastic or wooden container, the size of which will be approximately 600x400x300 cm. In the bottom of this box you will need to drill a number of holes for drainage. It is best to place the container on a tray filled with sand, then excess moisture flowing from the box will absorb the sand.

A plastic or wooden box is suitable for breeding worms

Priming

At the bottom of the box for breeding worms you need to put a layer of straw or hay, about 5 centimeters, compacted a little. You need to sprinkle a layer of vermicompost on the straw; it can be bought without any problems at any flower shop.

Nutrition

Dung worms are completely picky creatures and can feed on any organic matter. This can be various types of food waste - fruit or vegetable peelings (the only exception is potato peelings). These cleanings need to be processed in a meat grinder. Periodically the worms need to be given eggshells, ground into dust.

The waste should be spread in an even layer, the thickness of which is approximately 5-7 cm, and vermicompost should be poured on top of the waste, in a layer of approximately 2 cm. As necessary, a portion of feed (waste) is added again.

To understand at what point the waste should be added, you need to pay attention to the type of the previous portion. If the waste remains are practically invisible visually, and only a layer of vermicompost is visible, then it’s time for the next feeding. This means that the worms have already processed the previous portion of waste.

When layers have formed in the box: straw, then vermicompost, a layer of waste, and another layer of vermicompost, you can launch the first batch of dung worms for the purpose of breeding them.

Watering

After this, you need to add a small amount of water into the container. Drainage holes will prevent water from stagnating. However, you should constantly ensure that the required level of humidity is maintained in the box for comfortable breeding of worms. To do this, you need to take a handful of soil and squeeze it into a fist; if moisture comes out through your fingers, then the humidity level is sufficient.

Own worms are convenient and profitable

Watering must be done regularly, as needed. The soil in the container should not be dry. Watering should be done exclusively with warm water at room temperature, standing for at least 3 days.

Watering should also be done immediately after the next feeding. After this, the box should be covered with a lid or suitable material (this could be a piece of corrugated cardboard). Moisture will evaporate less, and the worms feel more comfortable in the dark.

Temperature

The optimal temperature for breeding dung worms is +18-24°C.

Dispersal of worms

Under comfortable conditions, after about 2 months, the population of dung worms will increase by 2-6 times. If this happens, the worms will need to be resettled. This is done according to a similar scheme described above. You just need more boxes.

Any fish bites on the worm at any time of the year

Naturally, several boxes for one fisherman is too much, but having a box on hand where there is always a certain amount of dung worms is very convenient. After all, in the heat of summer or winter, sometimes it is simply impossible to buy or get a single worm in any other way, but you want to go fishing. And it is advisable to return with a good catch, and not just walk to the reservoir. After all, worms are a fisherman’s trump card.