Grains for Worms

Here is an interesting question from Ruthie:

my husband and i are new to worm farming and have read just
about everything i can find regarding food for the worms; we have a
“cultured” nightcrawler which we are going to use for castings and
fish bait; i have seen the mention of grain feeding and would like to
know which grains would be best? what ratios to use etc. there has
been a mention of rye & barley?

would appreciate any information you can supply me with.

Hi Ruthie,
I’m not really an expert on this topic, but my hope is that by posting this on the blog we’ll get some comments from readers who do use a lot of grain foods for their worms.

I honestly think a lot of grain products would work well. I’ve heard that a lot of people use chicken ‘laying mash’ as a worm fattener, but have not tried this myself. I’ve used wheat bran mixed with food waste slurry (my homemade manure), but it’s hard to say how effective it was given the fact that it was mixed with a lot of other materials.

I’ve also used brewery wastes (which, according to some experts is an excellent material for worms) but actually found them very difficult to work with – they went anaerobic (and nasty) very easily and the worms didn’t seem to care for them at all.

You mentioned culturing ‘nightcrawlers’ successfully – I would be interested to learn what type of nightcrawlers you are referring to. I have yet to come across someone who has had a lot of success with soil nightcrawlers (such as the Canadian Nightcrawler – Lumbricus terrestris), given their requirements.

Thanks

Written by Bentley on February 24th, 2009 with 8 comments.
Read more articles on Reader Questions.

More on Small Winter Worm Bins

I received a cool email from RWC reader, Christy – who wanted to share with me her winter worm bin set-up (after she saw the recent post about building a small winter bin). I asked Christy if I could share her info/photos and she was more than happy to oblige.

Here is what she wrote:

I saw your latest post about a worm heater and I thought I would give you pictures of the heater I set up in my parents worm bin. Their bin is sitting in their unheated Rabbit Barn. The barn has dropped below freezing several times (once for almost a week) but the bin has stayed above 65 degrees on the heated end.

The Heater is really simple to set up. I used a one gallon glass jar and a 2 – 5 gallon aquirium heater. The total cost is less than $10.00. I filled the jar with water and cut a hole in the lid for the cord. I place the heater in the jar according to the directions. I use an aquirium thermometer to check the temp. of the jar. It stays between 72 – 76 degrees. The jar is barried directly in the bin and placed close to one end to allow the worms a place to go if the heater gets too warm. The worms have stayed very active all winter even during very cold spells. The bin does dry out a little around the heater but it is easy to mist the area every few days.

Thanks again, Christy – this sounds like a nifty system!

Written by Bentley on February 24th, 2009 with 4 comments.
Read more articles on The Share Board and Winter Composting.