Comments on: Worm Inn vs Plastic Bin – 09-18-13

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:46:39 +0000

Bentley, you hit on exactly what I experienced in my 5 gallon system. With benign neglect you end up with smaller worms. Harvest some for a new active system and they plump right up. I read a page somewhere where a guy was either planning to or was actually using this behavior for his worm business. Smaller worms take less space. When it’s time to fill an order (or just prior) take smaller worms, put them into a system where they can feed and plump up, then ship.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 15:37:12 +0000

Oh right! We combined your idea with Paul’s idea to come up with the final project.
Anyway – this will definitely be a good opp to see what the Worm Inn can do!

By: John W.

John W. — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 15:12:30 +0000

well all i originally wanted was to see how quick the worm inn could process food. So as far as I can see this experiment is still good.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:20:12 +0000

Hi John,
My original thought had been to simply discontinue and start fresh at some later point. But then I realized it would still be interesting to see where things go from here. As mentioned, what was REALLY bogging me down was the requirement that I create identical food mixes for each system – which in itself wasn’t really in line with what you wanted me to do (I seem to recall something about feeding normally with non-optimized food materials).
What’s cool is that I DO now have a bunch of zucchinis (i.e. uniform food material) that are going to become worm food. So perhaps that will help us kinda get back on track again.
As far as the race goes – it won’t even be close at this point. The Inn has been receiving more food all along, and now that it’s continuing to receive more while the bin recovers, it’s going to pull even further ahead.

By: John W.

John W. — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 14:10:13 +0000

Would it be worth postponing this project until your real world worm business slows down? Not that i actually think it was a challenge to see which one would get to 100 pounds faster. But now that both worm bins are fully stocked you might be able to push the volume of food (once both bins are healthy again)