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Earthworm Care
Earthworms
are excellent for fishing bait, composting, and educational
purposes. Raising your own Earthworms
is fun and easy. Order your first batch of
Earthworms from
Decker Worm Sales, and then follow the guidelines below to
maintain your own Earthworm bed.
Size:
12 to 14 gallons.
Composition:
Aged horse, cow, rabbit manure. Straw, paper,
cardboard, peat moss.
Aeration:
Air vents on the sides and bottom of the bin -
Earthworms
require a lot of oxygen to be healthy. This is
accomplished by allowing the air to pass from the very bottom of the
bin through the bedding.
Moisture
Content:
60% to 80% - Earthworms
breath through their skin, but they do not have gills.
Saturated (100% moisture) bins will cut off the oxygen and the
weight of the water will pack all of the small air spaces in the
bedding. Earthworms
are mainly surface feeders and it is the top three or four
inches of your bin that needs to be at about 80% moisture. At 80%,
you can squeeze out a couple of drops of water just like a damp
sponge.
NOTE: Whether doing a large
commercial bin or a small home/classroom bin, you must try to
duplicate the native environment as closely as possible.
Food:
Add about a quart of food scraps per square foot of surface area
in your bin per week. Worms eat fruit and vegetable scraps, pasta,
bread, cooked beans, and other kitchen leftovers. Worms love coffee
grounds and filters, tea bags, paper towels, and napkins. Eggshells
provide calcium and the hard particles help them to digest their
food. To avoid fruit flies and odors, always bury the food just
below the surface of the bedding.
In order to prevent foul odors
and to not attract other animals -
NO ANIMAL PRODUCTS
SHOULD BE ADDED TO THE WORM BIN, INCLUDING CHEESE, OIL, BONES, AND
MEAT.
Fresh
Bedding:
As the worms break down the bedding and it becomes more
compact it will reduce the volume of bedding in your bin. Add about
1/2 inch of fresh bedding to the surface of the bin weekly.
Earthworms
won't be the only decomposing organism found in your worm bin. Tiny
white worms called Echytraeids eat decomposing material, and are not
a problem. Springtails in a bin will look like a sprinkling of
hundreds of tiny white creatures. They eat molds and are producers
of humus. Millipedes, sow bugs, slugs, snails, pill bugs, and
beetles are other common beneficial decomposers found in worm boxes.
Click here to order Red Worms, European Night
Crawlers, and African Night Crawlers.
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