My Gpaw had a worm farm for years. He kept them in "drawers" in "the worm shed" he had African Nightcralers when it would storm they wanted to travel so he ran low voltage wires around the top of the drawer. He made ghis own blend of peatmoss and fed them cornmeal. When it came time to pull out the big ones He'd pull a drawer and put it on a bench with a bright light shining on half of the drawer they would all move to the cool side.

Hey Grandad NICE POST LOL

your Gpaw and my dad musta gone to the same worm farming school.
Haa.

Hey Woolybugger,

I have raised worms for the last two years and can give some advise if you like. I personally have Red Wigglers and European Night crawlers.

First question: What do you plan to use them for? (Composting, castings, fishing, to sell, etc.)

Second Question: What kind of container do you plan on keeping them in. (Homemade bin, flow-thru, a purchased system like a Worm Factory) The system you chose can make a difference in your plans for raising them.

Keeping them in 70-80 degree temps is perfect. This is their prime temp to eat and breed.

How many are you looking to start off with? You can start with 1-2 lbs (about 1000-2000) and within a year (under perfect conditions) you could easily double to quadruple your worms.

If you want, I have several link to places with good info on the worms and a couple link on how to build different type of bins. I personally have a Worm Factory 360, 6 rubbermaid type bins 5-14 gals (I also gave away (4) 5gal bins with about 250-400 worms each) and I have a 55gal drum I've made into a flow-thru which has about 5-6lbs (5000-6000) worms in it.

I keep all my worms in the house except a 55gal FT and a bin in the greenhouse. They will not smell, and if they do smell, SOMETHING IS WRONG. Most of the time when there is smell, it's because they have been over fed.
For every pound of worms, they can eat about a pound of food a week.

Let me know if I can help with any questions.

I almost forgot about this topic and I meant to get back with some links.
Here is a great web site with tons of various info.

http://www.redwormcomposting.com/

Worm farm...Uuuggghhhhh

I have raised red wigglers two, no problem with worms crawing out, had a rabbit pen above the worm bed to feed them. Also fed them chicken mash. Lots of fun!

New project for me.

I might have to start looking in to this. I just think it would be to hot down here.

I have a tub of them going year round . I feed them with the commercial bedding you can buy at Bass-Pro or Cabellas and supplement with scraps. This time of year they stay in a back bedroom. No smell ever. Momma says nothing......at least they aren't in the refrigerator. I like having big fat healthy worms for fishing on demand. I really would like to try and raise some of the local worms that I dig over at my mother-in-laws place just east of Rockwall. These guys are huge! Big and fat and many over a foot long. Very powerful too. They put up quite a fight when you try to extract them from the soil.

We had a wooded spot by our house that had those huge worms when I was a kid. They were at least twice as thick as a night crawler and over a foot long. We called them river worms, anyone know the true name? I'd love to find some now..