Earthworm farming

[Sherrynboo]

Does anyone on this board raise earthworms for profit? A friend of mine was telling me her father had done it for thirty years and was very successful with it until he got too old and sick to keep up with it. I am always looking for ways to make money from the farm.

Sherry in GA

[Fire-Man]

Originally Posted by Sherrynboo

Does anyone on this board raise earthworms for profit? A friend of mine was telling me her father had done it for thirty years and was very successful with it until he got too old and sick to keep up with it. I am always looking for ways to make money from the farm.

Sherry in GA

I raise some, but only enough to fish with, thought about getting Larger with them-got to many Iron's in the fire at this time to get set-up to raise alot of them. I have also raised some crickets but not many-just want to see if I could do it----with the plans of raising both when I get set-up good in my home-stead life style. Soon I Hope!! Randy

[moonwolf]

I've sold the large nightcrawlers to anglers through the bait shop wholesaled from another source and some that can be locally found at night without acrually 'raising' them. It's a time committment for sure. There is always a huge seasonal demand for fishing crawlers, though they have to be graded for size. The small ones aren't of much value.
I don't formally raise worms yet. I am planning to get going on redworm culture vermicomposting and bait. I'll sell them as I can market them. I know it's going to be a big committment with time and keeping them with food and bedding supplies to have a breeding to levels I want, which would be about 100 lb./ yr. That may be an ambitious amount unless doing it nearly full time.

[Linda H]

I worked for a lady a million years ago who raised fishing worms. Over the years I eventually took over the whole process from sales, delivery, feeding, picking etc.

If you're in a recreational area you should be able to make a fair living. the cost once you get your "beds" made is not that expensive. We did a very small business with night crawlers as it was too warm where we were to raise them. Our main business was plain old red worms.

Linda

[mommagoose_99]

A zillion years ago when the kids were small I took an ancient chest freezer and converted it to an earth worm garbage disposal. I actually bought the red wigglers from Jimmy Carters farm from an ad in Mother Earth News. I fed the worms kitchen garbage and occasionally corn meal and leaves. It worked great. I did not have much luck selling them or their by products though. I ended up ading them to the compost in my garden. My kids learned a lot about recycling and now my daughter has her own raised beds and earth worms in her compost.

[fourwindsranch]

If anyone is in need I have paper bedding available for $1/lb plus shipping.
M~

[ourfather]

One good advice from a story

One of my great great aunt's husbands decided to do earthworm farming. He didn't read up enough on how to make the dirt and ground and what temperatures and etc for the worms.

He had a friend who had a horsefarm, so one day they dropped off a bunch of manure The poop was SO hot it cooked the earthworms alive :baby04: lol

He didn't do earthworm farming after that. I'd go for cooler fertilizer.

Kat

[3girls]

It is my understanding that redworms thrive in some kind of bedding underneath rabbit cages. There are tricks to picking them, etc. Years ago, I tried the fish worm business, and found that the most difficult part was finding the food for them. I'd be rather more successful now that I know a lot more about it. Too tedious for my taste, but I sure use them to process garbage and later, when I get them, rabbit's poop.

[Oggie]

A few years ago we found out that the sandy loam on our property would make ideal habitat for earthworm production. All we needed was to add organic material. Luckily there was a "green" landscaping company just down the road that didn't use synthetic pesticides and we could get more grass clippings that we could possibly use to mix with manure from our farm.

We decided to give it a go and named our new venture the "Flying J Lazy W Rocking E Bar S Earthworm ranch." Unfortunately none of the worms survived the branding.

[SteveD(TX)]

I think one of the moderators here does it. "Shrek" hangs out mostly on the singles forum I think. You might try contacting him.

[Misty]

Originally Posted by Oggie

A few years ago we found out that the sandy loam on our property would make ideal habitat for earthworm production. All we needed was to add organic material. Luckily there was a "green" landscaping company just down the road that didn't use synthetic pesticides and we could get more grass clippings that we could possibly use to mix with manure from our farm.

We decided to give it a go and named our new venture the "Flying J Lazy W Rocking E Bar S Earthworm ranch." Unfortunately none of the worms survived the branding.

[wormlady]

We recently sold our family business which dealt exclusively with books on how to raise worms. Check out www.wormbooks.com for info on how to establish a worm business. The book Raising Earthworms for Profit was written by my husband's grandfather and is a classic.