What
tools do we need to become a worm farmer ?
That's
a great question, and one that we get asked all the time. The beauty of
being in the worm business is that very few tools are actually
needed. Below is a list of tools and equipment that you may need.
The
most important tool or piece of equipment is the worm bin itself.
Depending on your setup... this could be anything ranging from a small
plastic Can o Worms, Aerobin, or Reln Worm factory.
All the way up to a custom made bed, (indoors or outdoors ) of a
commercial scale.
Things
like a shovel and a digging fork come in real handy when
mixing up worm food and cleaning out old bedding or aerating the top
working layer of the worm beds. A point to remember is that shovels are
deadly on worm health if you aren't careful when digging in the beds.
Use the digging fork instead when poking through your worm beds.
Wheelbarrows
are great for mixing up small quantity's of worm feed and can also
be used to carry your worm castings from the worm beds to your casting
storage area. Wheelbarrows are used when sorting through your
beds and taking away old bedding and separating small quantities of
worms from castings by hand.
Plastic
buckets You can't have too many buckets in the worm farming game.
You will be using these all the time for putting worms in and feeding
beds with feeds that you mixed up in the wheelbarrow. Another tip
for using a bucket: If your worms ever get crowded and start frothing
from heat and stress... you can gather the massed worms and shove them
into a bucket of cool water to cool them off for a minute or two. Then
strain off the water and put the worms back into the bed.
Thermometers
are important to keep an eye on our ambient air temperatures as well as
the bedding temps. By controlling the conditions in the beds and air
around them, we can simulate natures equation to maximize breeding rates
as well as growth rates in our worm populations. The incubation period
of our worm capsules prior to hatching needs to be maintained at proper
temperatures to ensure maximum survival rates in the shortest possible
time, If you are serious about farming worms, consider getting a
thermometer.
Coarse
hessian (he-shun) This is the brown material used for bags of chaff.
We use hessian when we want to produce large quantities of worm capsules
that are easy to gather for either, sale or setting for hatching on a
consistent level. (this is optional)
PH
Test kits There are 2 different types of PH test kits that we use.
One is a standard probe with needle dial. The other is a chemical test
kit that requires taking samples of bedding and mixing with chemicals to
read the levels of acidity or alkaline of our worm beds. Different worms
have different PH preferences, Some worm capsules hatch better in very
acid material, others like neutral or slightly alkaline conditions. PH
test kits are standard equipment for the serious worm farmer.
Watering
cans are great for watering worm beds. If you have been collecting
your leachate from the worm beds, the watering can is handy for applying
it to your garden.
Sapphire
sieves consist
of 2 different sizes steel wire sieves. These are great for separating
small quantities of worms from the bedding. They are also handy for
doing egg counts. By taking samples of bedding and washing them through
the sieves with a hose, we can see how many egg capsules are in the
bedding.
Latex
gloves are the type doctors use. When you are playing around in your
worm beds the gloves can save you from getting your hands dirty.
Good
torches (flashlights) Worms are more active at night and a good
torch will help you see what your doing. It is a good idea to check your
worm beds when it is raining after dark, There is plenty of stories of
people getting out of bed after a nights rain... Only to notice that all
of the worms have mysteriously disappeared ! This can be avoided by a
quick check just after dark to make sure the worms beds are escape proof
or bait traps are ready to catch those escapees.
Spike
Harvesters are a tool for the larger worm farm that needs to harvest
large quantities of bedding in a hurry. They are a rotating cylinder
with an inward facing series of spikes that drag worms from the bedding.
They can be hand or power driven. We designed our own electric driven
spike harvester. It took only a weekend for me to build and it cost
about $200 complete. These machines do the job in an hour that used to
take 2 days by hand.
The
Rotary Screen Harvester is a long cylinder made from different sized
steel wire mesh. These are used to separate the castings from the egg
capsules as well as the worms.
Electronic
scales are used for weighing worms for sale. They are also great for
taking average worm weights. Worm farmers in the bait selling game sell
worms at a fairly uniform size. Most of the African nightcrawlers that
we sell for bait go out the door at 2 grams. The scales help us to keep
worm weights consistent and allow us to keep an eye on average bed
stocking densities as well.
Sorting
tables are a must have, These can be made out of anything flat.
Sorting tables give you somewhere to do your worm weighing and light
separation work and are a great place to sit your cups of coffee.
Calico
bags are like a pillow slip. you can make them yourself if you are
handy on a sewing machine. (make sure you double stitch and overlock the
seems or the worms will escape) These are used for packaging large
quantities of worms for sale or even when transporting the worm beds for
a long distance. Worms do not like being shaken up and down all day long
in a worm bed. Calico bags are breathable and are great for transporting
worms. Some people going on a week long fishing trip at the dam or river
like to buy worms in bulk, The calico bags are great for this and are
easy to get the worms out of when fishing aswell.
Zip
ties and rubber bands are used for tying the tops of calico bags.
Gumboots
help keep your feet dry when doing serious hose work and for those
lovely rainy days working the worm beds outdoors.
This
is not a complete list of the things you may need but it will give you a
good idea of things that can help you with your worm farm.
Good
luck!