Composting Worms For Sale

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Thanks Eric,
I tried to look at the link site but can't get past the survey. Didn't want to put all my details on there. I just want to just have the links so people can just click on them. No need for photos. If you trust the survey l will do it. Thanks again.

 

The site is all done now. I got the links up.

 

Excellent... I just have to finish sorting my chickens and tractors out then i'll be getting to my worms...

 

Hey Brian - check this out! Now you'll want to get chooks. If only you could get your daughters horses to roost over night.....

https://permaculturenews.org/2013/03/20/worm-bin-and-chicken-poop-compost-catch/

 

Eco what a great story. I was crook when you posted it. I would like to put a link to it on my website. Who would I have to ask?

 

After a 6 week break due to an orperation then bed ridden for a week a few weeks later and the loss of my website for 5 weeks I am pleased to say the Worm Business is again up and running. This is the breeding season at the moment and the worms are really powering on

 

Sorry Brian - never did see that previous comment. Craig McIntosh is the webmaster so you'd need to ask him. His email address is on the main page I think. If you can't find it PM me and I'll send it to you.

 

Thanks Eco. I found it and sent off an email to Craig. I just thought it was such a good story.

 

Eco all is good. Craig gave the nod of approval. I now have the link on my site. Hopefully many others will now enjoy the story too.

 

There has been a few hits on the link so the good news story goes on.

Not long ago l added Speckled Feeder Roaches (Woodies) to my website. I totally underestimated the demand for them. Had to withdraw them from sale till l breed up lots more stock. They are used to feed reptiles.

 

Brian;

I found this site by going through some items you posted back in 2011. I've been unsuccessful in bringing up anything by going directly to the Permaculture site. Have no idea if you'll even get this. If you do, What's new with ECO and are you OK? I've posted a note on the worm expert's site where you were last month.

Benjy

 

I now have African Night Crawlers available. They are great composting worm and an excellent fishing worm. Soon I will have Woodies (Speckled Feeder Roaches) for sale. These are really good reptile food along with the worms.

See my website for details thanks

 

Hi Brian, how do the different breeds of worms get along if they are in the same worm farm? I have a bathtub with red wrigglers in it and was considering some african night crawlers as you say they make good bait.

 

Hello Luke,
They will get along fine but the Reds will out breed them unless the numbers going in are similar. I found the Reds took over the beds when they are mixed and that is possibly because there were more Reds to start with.

To get the bigger fishing worms it is all about management. It is the same with bigger Reds. Africans also don't like living in their own poo so it is better to harvest them every 3 weeks and set them up in fresh bedding to grow them out. Doing this keeps them away from baby worms and eventually all the worms will grow to a similar size. That is one of the other key factors, don't have worms of all different sizes in the same bed.
Reds are the same but allow 4 weeks between changes.

The idea is to allow one week to settle into the new bedding and 2 weeks to lay eggs. Africans are supposed to hatch after 14 days but I am yet to be convinced of this but I stick to what the experts say. So in theory after 3 weeks babies should be hatching so it is time to move the worms and set them up again. All the bedding which you have taken the worms from put aside so the eggs hatch.

Luke I would just get a 50 lt tub and half fill it with manure and keep the Africans in this. Much easier to manage this way.

 

Thought I would bump Brian up again .

Brian a question I have a couple of Aquaponic systems and we run worms in the growbeds to help process the fish waste also we bury things like banana peels ect to provide nutrient diversity which the worms deal with .

I did a big cleanout today of finished plants normally when I pull a large plant out 20 or 30 worms will come with it but hardly saw any best guess is the runs of 40c heat had probably hammered them hottest ive seen the water this summer was around 34celcius , most days this time of the year its around 20c . Of course they don't have the option of going deeper to escape temperature .

I just use the worms that live here naturally a fairly small earth worm they do fine in the system and I have seen massive worms in the growbeds during the cooler months , Also feed them to my fish in the cold months as they go off pellets but will eat a little live feed .

Everyone says to use compost worms in the growbeds but ive never got around to it , which breed of worm would you recommend as im keen to get some , also catching earth worms and cleaning them is a bit tedious all winter , I might wait until it starts to cool down a bit and get a pack from you .

Have you considered joining the Aquaponic forums they also have buy sell sections , the two biggest are ( Back yard aquaponics ) in WA and ( Practical aquaponics ) in QLD of course you will have work your way in politely .
Rob

 

Hello Terra,
I think the heat may have got them. In their beds they can move deeper as you said to cooler areas. Red Wrigglers will tolerate a wider range of temperatures than European and African Night Crawlers so they would be my choice. They will breed all year round if conditions are favourable but do much better in the Autumn and Spring. Here on the Gold Coast I can get them breeding just as well in winter. I am lucky to get time lately for this Forum let alone others lol.

The past month has seen my sales go through the roof. It is a hobby and I have to keep it manageable but am kicking myself I didn't have more Red Wrigglers ready. I was trying to get the African Night Crawlers ( fishing worms) up to size and I was working on my Woodies, getting their numbers up before Christmas. Since I got back from NZ the orders haven't stopped. I have sold just over 27,000 Reds in one month and just over 1300 Africans. Then there is the Woodie orders. Work was dead for a while and the sales helped and then work went nuts and left me little time thus my absents from here.

When you are ready I will send you some. I would set up a couple of breeding tubs and follow my website how to breed really fast. Then use the worms in the aquaponics system keeping your breeding tubs as back up. I read you do shearing and sheep manure is very good for the worms. I use horse manure for breeding and have just found a source of cow manure and the worms are going nuts over that.

 

Go Brian!

Have you changed your setup much, or is it still just tubs and lots more of them?

 

Hello my friend, long time.

Nothing has changed, I have just got smarter lol. Well not that smart I ran out of worms. It is a bit of a balancing act with everything at the moment. I am still selling off the worms I bred last winter. That just shows how successful my system is. Still a bit too hot for serious breeding but once the weather cools I will be into it again.

As I sold off the Reds I used the tubs for the Africans so I may need more tubs for the Reds again. It will soon come back to normal.

How is your bathtub going?

 

Yes, hello mate.

Are you screening more professionally or just working harder? I often wonder how one claims that there is 2000 worms in an amount of medium, is this a live worm weight thing or do the no-hatched eggs count?

Bathtub going great, probably not as well as it went when I first started but I do things differently, or easier now. I'm still using horse manure as per your recommendation (even quoted that manual - the bedding selections - you linked ages ago in a discussion with another group) but now I mix Biochar at new bedding time and have been experimenting with differing amounts. The most I have gone is 50/50 char to horse but have settled in the 70/30 to 80/20 range.

I've still got the shademesh in, and never got around to the agpipe. The mesh still sits on the blocks of timber and I harvest the silt underneath the same time I harvest the top, then hose it out and use the liquid. I used to manually aerate and add lime before, now I just let it sit and add food in any haphazard way (mostly always blended and frozen).

Had to add a old door over the carpet as the rats figured it out and that fixed it up.

I've been donating a fair amount of worms to people, schools etc. Funny thing is, a lot of permaculturalists don't use worms which blows my mind some and I've been donating heavily to a certain group of permies. I just reach into a feeding area and dig out a writhing mass and put into old Chinese takeaway containers, 2 per person for starting up farms. I did get some chickens but I actually find getting the worms out too annoying so I don't bother so much for them.

People think I'm some sort of worm expert and I do owe most, if not all, of it to you and your sharing of knowledge. Thank you.