Nitro Worms

Just keep in mind If you are buying bagged manure of unknown origin with unknown level of composting heat treatments that you may or may not end up with hundreds of baby worms in the bed like I talked about. Worms are not real smart, they react to their environment which we are providing them. I won’t hand out everything I know about cocoon production but theres things we can do to help fool them into mass cocoon production whenever we want. Theres other things we can do to stop them making cocoons. Here’s a hint: If I wanted a few more cocoons I would be putting in the effort to find the real nice pats rather than a bag of commercial heat treated manure.

I’ve been asked about feeding the worms. Those people who read my first post will notice I didn’t say much about feeding the Nightcrawlers and concentrated my post more on the bedding...... Feeding Nightcrawlers is where we need to put the nerd hat on and get a little scientific. A backyard worm bin is quiet different than a setup like I run and the stakes are much lower in a small worm bed at home than a shed with hundreds of thousands of little hungry mouths in it. You will notice how I said to pop the 100 worms into the bag with the ingredients I talked about and put the rubber band on and re bed them in 5-6 weeks. I know that amount of worms in that amount of material does not need anything else added. Feeding is where most European Nightcrawler beds come unstuck. A bit of this goes in and a bit of that and what the inexperienced grower isnt thinking about is what is REALLY going on in that bedding. What we have is a mini ecosystem in each bed. Zillions of tiny little things going on in there and each of those little critters and bacterias and yeasts etc have something in common. EXCRETEMENT. Yes a small amount from each one but it’s like a miniature war going on in there and changes in temperature, PH, and moisture can turn a seemingly happy worm bed into a smelly mess of doom very very quickly. Everything must be in balance. Watch what happens when you add your yeast to your beer fermenter when it reaches the right temperature, kaboom!! We have oxygen being absorbed and yeast numbers increasing bigtime one hr, then the next we reach low oxygen levels then the excretement of Ethanol starts as sugar is consumed. Now, back to your worm beds, have a think about what your putting in there, while you have the beer fermenter still in your mind. Using grain based feeds is starchy. Starch is chained together sugars which are unlocked by alpha amylase enzymes among others, high PH and temperature plays its part as well, Everything you put in your worm bin is adding to this biomass and theres a lot more going on than you may think. Commercial worm growers learn what works and find that balance of growing speed vs potential risk of setting off a disaster of mass worm deaths. We grow worms in stages, we have breeder beds, juveniles up to 0.7 grams then we move them on to the bait growing beds and each stage requires different stocking densities, and different feeds and moisture requirements depending on the demands in the market at that time. I can grow 100,000 European Nightcrawler hatched cocoons to 1 gram in 47 days delivered to the customer but its very high risk feeding. I can grow the same with a 6 month delivery time with virtually no risk feeding. The instructions in my first post are your best bet guys. Trust me Cheers, Andy

The principle of the breathable bag works along the lines of the old school meat safes (before fridges) or the evaporative air coolers we all used to like filling with water at nans house and watching the water flow down through the straw at the back of the fan. Evaporation is a powerful way to draw heat energy out of things. Commercial worm farms and other high density farming sheds use high power water fogging nozzles along with huge fans to rapidly pull the heat out. A damp bag with a breeze has a similar effect but just a bit cheaper to run

Horse manure can work for European Nightcrawlers Neil. Sometimes you can find bags of it along Rd’s for sale where kids rake it up and make a little pocket money. A phone call to the local horse club perhaps? Just watch out for the commercial stable horse manure as sometimes it’s loaded with pine shavings to the point theres more pine and nitrates from urine than actual manure. Growing Euro’s or at least keeping them alive in good nick long enough to use them can be done. But yes, It can be a bit tricky. If it was easy and foolproof I would be out of a job haha Cheers, Andy

Here’s a tip for guys with sweat box worm farms to prevent the escapees: Set a damp manure trap perimeter around your worm bed. After the rain is gone etc collect the worms and manure and place that in the garden in a pile or in a bag in a cool place and enjoy them from there.... lol

Gotta respect the Aussie sun in summer thats for sure. The problem with the broccoli boxes and other 4 sided plastic worm beds with lids is they become a sweat shop as many people soon find out, The worm farm bedding is soo alive with bacteria, fungi, micro organisms etc which is great food for the worms but has an enormous oxygen demand. The damper the material, the more quickly the system can go south with temperature changes. I am not a fan of any of the worm systems that have leachate dripping out the bottom but this is what some worm books and worm farm system marketing material suggest people to do. (These books are often written by failed worm farmers who become authers instead haha go figure) I see this dripping leachate as a problem as it’s sitting there in the bottom tier in a somewhat anaerobic septic condition which further steams up the system which is the exact opposite of what a worm farm should be. The correct way to make liquid worm cast is to take the completed solid castings and place a small amount into a fine, net like membrane and dangle that inside a very highly oxygenated tank of water along with a few boosters to brew an Aerobic liquid and apply that asap. Some guys have luck using what drips out the bottom of an overly wet worm bed but I know I wouldnt want the liability of supplying anaerobic leachate to others. Be careful out there is all I will say on the leachate that is made incorrectly. I like the worm beds to have a high surface area exposed to the air. Breathable Bags work, keep them cool and watch the moisture and dont let them become compacted from using the wrong materials in the bedding in the first place. Theres options to keeping worms cool depending on your circumstances. I went with the option of an enormous temp controlled worm shed. Others dig holes underground and stash their worms below the layer of hotter soil. A cool concrete laundry floor with a few worm bags sitting there directly on the concrete can help when the heat really sets in. Worm growing isn’t for everyone and some climates are more suitable than others. Think 20degrees C bedding temp and you will be in the ballpark. I could write a book on this but for now I’m too busy growing worms to write a book. Cheers, Andy

Thanks BigHorse, I appreciate the feedback. The thing is, these worms can be found in stores across the country but I feel guys are being ripped off. They sell at shops in punnets of 20 worms for $12-15. Unless you are fishing at Copeton dam at Inverell of course and go to one of my shops..... then you will enjoy the cheapest Euro’s around at $20 a bag of 100

I was checking out that thread a while ago. You gotta be happy with that. Not sure what species of worm you have there munching the lettuce but if its the usual composting worms, Eisenia Fetida... that word kinda means foul or fetid and regards the smell and defence mechanism of that shallow living species evolved as a deterrent to predators tempted to taste them. If you can get a few Eisenia Hortensis or European Nightcrawlers as they are known as, you may be surprised at just how much more desirable they are to fish. Not to mention the ease of handlng them (old guys with bad hands) as well. Check out this 6.5 gram Euro, She’s a Rippa:

Here’s my mornings work today, Pile of worm castings created while re bedding some European Nightcrawler breeders. I don’t wet our worm beds once they are set. The moisture is manipulated by using wet or dry feeds. Our worm beds need to remain loose and airated at all times to allow extraction without clogging the screens.

Hi Dave, nothing wrong with your setup mate. Plenty of old broccoli boxes from the back of coles and woolies have been re used for composting duties exactly like you are showing there. Good stuff

So, You want to build a nightcrawler worm farm huh? A quick search online for worm farms will reveal all sorts of complicated contraptions of moulded plastic marketed to the guys who want to try their hand at a bit of backyard worm farming. Here’s a secret: You wont find any commercial nightcrawler worm growers using these types of systems usually found at hardware stores. Why? Cost aside, They simply dont work very good for nightcrawlers. My Name is Andy, I am a commercial worm grower and have been breeding, growing, and supplying worms across Australia for almost 30 years and I’ve lost count of the amount of people telling me how they tried to start a worm farm up in the hopes of having a never ending supply of worms but it failed misserably. Sound Familiar??? Let me show you a simple, escape proof worm farm that you can build with the kids in a day that will work and will be fun to setup. It will require periodic care as we are talking about living creatures here so be prepared to get your hands dirty from time to time. First job is to grab a shovel and get out into the fresh air with the family and gather some “ingredients” that we will need to make this mission a success. I’m talking about old school hunting and gathering here, I’m not talking about standing in a tackle shop all day looking at lures and day dreaming about how big a fish each one would catch or going down to the hardware store to buy bags of stuff that wont work..... You will need to plan a hr or 2 out in the scrub to find some of these cow pats. We are looking for 2 different types. taller ones with a nice bit of wrinkle or with fold lines on them and some older, dryer ones that we can mix together to form our perfect worm farm bedding recipe. While scouting for paddocks with good pats, you want to find an area that has a bit of a mix of green grass and a good amount of dryer tall grass. This will give better pats than say an all green oats paddock. You want semi dry tall grass fed pats, NOT the type of pats found in feedlots which are full of grain etc. If you buy bagged feedlot manure or cheat and go to a feedlot or green oats paddock..... You will fail. Put in an effort to get the right manure is what I’m saying here guys. You want to end up with a mixture of semi fresh and old and dry, so when mixed together you end up with a nicely airated, friable, slightly damp bedding for the worm farm. It will look like this after you chop it up with the shovel. To get the right moisture, you should take a handfull of this worm bedding and squeeze it hard. You want to see a small amount of water between your fingers but NONE to drip off. If you have 1 single drop of water fall off your hand it’s too wet. Add more dry manure. Mix, test again. Most nightcrawler worm farm problems I see come from guys getting this moisture wrong. Those worm farms I see with a tap on the bottom to collect the leachate from at hardware stores = FAIL.... BAHAHAha. I have over 3,000 worm beds and you will never get a drop of water out of any of them. have a think about that. Nightcrawler Worms need AIR they are not fish. We want the worms skin to be slightly moist to aid their oxygen absorbtion. Not too wet, not too dry. Once you have your bedding ready, shovel it into an escape proof woven bag and put a rubber band around the top and leave it a day or 2. We need to make sure its not heating up. Don’t use a sealed bag, or a tightly woven one. It needs to be able to breath. A pillow case can work but it will rot in a short while. Once your happy the material inside the bag is not heating It’s time to put 3 or 4 of your Nightcrawler worms in there. Do this inside and out of the sun! Just sit them on top of your bedding and leave the bag open fully. Watch the worms and see what they do. If they start climbing up out of the bag straight away, something is wrong. Manure might be too fresh and it’s gassing them or you was lazy and used bagged cow manure from a feedlot or you was really crazy and used chicken manure or something else instead. If you done your ingredient gathering properly. The few worms will start making their way down into the bag and dissapear. THIS IS GREAT!! Close up the bag and leave them in a cool place for a few hrs or overnight and then check them. If they are busy munching away deep in the bag you can be confident to add the rest of your nightcrawlers to your new escape proof worm farm. You will want about 100 Nightcrawlers per worm farm bag. The Nightcrawlers you have bought for this project will likely already be in some type of shipping bedding material. Shake that off the worms and just add the worms not the bedding they was in as it’s usually coco peat or peat moss which has little feed value in it for the worms but is used as its light and airated for safer transport as heavy dense materials compact in transport which suffocate the worms. Leave the worms in a cool place and after 5-6 weeks you will find hundreds of baby Nightcrawlers in the bag and worm cocoons and your breeders will need to be rebedded again into a fresh batch of bedding to start the cycle over again. You don’t need fancy worm farm systems and packets of “secret” worm foods etc lol. What you need is good bedding, moisture, oxygen and a monthly or bi monthly routine to collect a few cow pats. You can skip the bag if you want and use a wheelbarrow instead. I once used a wheelbarrow to breed over 50,000 European Nightcrawlers in a year starting with 500 breeders initially. I did have a 4ft flouro batten light hung over the wheelbarrow though to help keep them in. They don’t call em Nightcrawlers for nothin. If you want to have a go at building a never ending supply of European Nightcrawlers for yourself, I can help you out with the breeding size Worms and bags to get you started. For everyone else that doesn’t feel like going cow pat hunting every month but loves taking the family out camping and throwing a line in at night with the campfire and beers and a few songs playing in the background..... I got you covered. I can have a bag of 500 European Nightcrawlers on your doorstep ready for the fishing trip in a few days from now. Just hit me up, I’m always here to help as best I can. Cheers, Andy