The Speedy Breeder
If you want to increase your worm population quickly, perhaps to produce capsules for soil inoculation, you may like to build a Speedy Breeder.
As you can see this is divided into two sections, the upper being a rectangle 900 mm x 600 nun x 100 mm filled with fresh, tasty feed. The lower triangular section is filled with old thoroughly worked castings, in which there is no nutritional value. The two sections are separated by a coarse screen. I use 25 mm galvanised expanded metal for this, but any coarse mesh will do. Put 10,000 mature worms in the top, cover with thick hessian and leave undisturbed for twenty-one days. The worms will congregate in the top section, which is the breeder bed. It is here that they will produce capsules, which will be deposited in the bedding.
Speedy Breeder
After twenty-one days, remove the hessian cover and, under a strong light, carefully scrape the bedding away into a container. The worms will retreat from the light through the separation screen into the old castings. When all the bedding containing the capsules has been removed, immediately refill the top section with fresh feed, recover and water again. The worms will quickly come back up through the screen and resume eating and reproducing. While they are perfectly comfortable in the castings, because there is no available food there they have no reason to stay. Repeat this procedure every twenty-one days.
This does not give time for the first formed capsules to hatch, but as many as 60,000 capsules could have been produced. If these capsules averaged four young each, then you have the potential to hatch no less than 240,000 worms from each batch of bedding! However, capsules rarely achieve more than 85 per cent fertility and, because things never seem to work out at their most efficient, I always consider a batch from the Speedy Breeder to be worth only 100,000 young.
To optimise production, the Speedy Breeder is best kept at a temperature of 23°C. You can do this by keeping it under cover and you can instal heating wires and a thermostat in the bottom section. Seed-germinating equipment is suitable and can be obtained from a nursery supplier.
The Speedy Breeder was originally developed by Dr Thomas Barrett (the author of Harnessing the Earthworm) in the 1940
One of the most important things a worm farmer must be able to do well is to harvest worms so he can sell them.
Light Retraction
You will find your worms in the top 150 to 200 mm of your bed(s). Using a rake held upside down, scrape away any uneaten from the top of the bed. Then using a fork — never a spade take what you want from the bed, worms included, and place it a table either under a bright light or better still in direct light. Push the bedding into a mound. Any exposed worms burrow inwards to escape the light and drying wind.
After a few minutes, all the worms will have disappeared. Once again, scrape away the bedding exposing the worms. (I usually use my hands for this, but my wife prefers to use a hearth brush. It certainly works very well and I suspect the worms may prefer it tool) The worms will continue to burrow in with you chasing them down until a solid nucleus of worms is exposed. They will all be trying to hide beneath one another and in so doing will push away every last vestige of castings, leaving it in a ring around the mound of worms. You don’t need to stand there waiting in between scrapes. To save time you can do it between jobs or you can have as many mounds as you like or one long one and scrape continuously.
Alternatively, you may prefer to prepare your mound at the end of the day and leave a light burning over it all night. Next morning, you will find that most of the worms have gone to the centre, leaving you with very little separating to do.
I have found a 400 watt metal halide light very efficient and in fact I have three of these which enable me to separate as many as 100,000 worms at a time if need be. However, other farmers get along very well with the far less expensive Portafloods available at any hardware store or supermarket.
When the worms are fully exposed and completely separated from the bedding, do not leave them like this any longer than necessary. If you are going to sell them, bag them with peat moss. Exposure for any length of time will cause them to lose an unnecessary amount of moisture. Exposed to light and air, worms exude moisture to keep their skins from drying out, This dehydration eventually causes death. In money terms, this moisture loss means a rapid and significant reduction in weight. If you are selling by the kilo, remember that moisture is quite heavy and the loss of it means you will have to supply more worms to the kilo_
The bedding from which you have removed the worms will not be pure castings, but will contain uneaten food and also many capsules, which are your future worms. This should therefore be returned to the bed, or used to start a new one.
