Worms for compost: varieties, step-by-step instructions for breeding compost worm Staratel

It is no coincidence that the Prospector worm is named so; it is a real hard worker in converting soil into humus. In addition, it grows quickly and is unpretentious to living conditions.

This species was bred by Professor A. M. Igonin as a result of crossing Chuya and Vladimir worms. A unique feature of this breed of worms is that they are almost ideally suited to the conditions of our climate, namely:

• temperature fluctuations from +8 to +30 degrees;
• with the onset of cold weather, it can go to depths and wait there for the onset of warming;
• retains the ability to reproduce even at +8C degrees;
• unpretentious to feed.

The benefits of worms

In order to understand the likelihood of generating income, you need to understand how useful a simple earthworm is and what you get with its help, besides fishing bait.

At school we were told that the soil should be loose and talked about the importance of soil animals. Time passed and everything was forgotten, but in vain. Remembering the lessons of zoology, we state that worms process a variety of waste of plant and animal origin. Their diet includes algae, larvae, bacteria, fungi and other organic components. During the digestion process, the animal converts soil debris into humic acids, which come into contact with minerals located in the ground and, as a result, calcium humates are formed. These components make the soil loose and saturated with air.

During the processing process, the soil is saturated with enzymes, amino acids, vitamins, and biologically active substances that promote the growth and development of plants. And it is the worms that perform the main function of enriching the mixture.

The business is to create comfortable conditions for the reproduction of animals, and in return they give the best fertilizers. In addition, they are used as biomass for feeding animals, and, of course, for fishing.

How to collect vermi tea

To collect vermichay, we made a recess under the tray and inserted a container there. There should be a hole in the oilcloth directly above it. We drain the vermicelli as the container fills. The thicker the layer of vermicompost, the more concentrated the fertilizer is. Before watering the plants, dilute the vermi tea with water in a ratio of 1:10 to the color of weakly brewed tea.

Periodically, we carefully stir the substrate to improve oxygen access. But we do this carefully so as not to damage the worms and not mix vermicompost with unprocessed food.

Immediately after the worms moved in, we began preparing new compost fences to put plant scraps from the garden in there. After all, we need to think about what we will feed our helpers next year now.

Types of worms

There are many varieties of subfoliates, all of them are extremely beneficial for the soil and are deservedly called soil ecologists. For business, you can breed any of the species, but BBQcash experts recommend paying attention to several of the most popular and easy-to-maintain ones.

Earthworm (Prospector)

An invertebrate with a smooth body consisting of ring segments complemented by small brushes that serve for movement. The cylindrical animal grows up to 30 cm in length. The back is dark, convex, the belly is flat and pink. This species is classified as hermaphrodite, however, the reproduction process occurs through mating. In the front of the body there is a small extension containing an organ that produces an adhesive substance, which allows the formation of a protective cocoon for laid eggs. Thus, the juveniles are protected from the negative effects of the environment until they are born. The raincoat lives up to 4 years, has no organs of vision and touch. Despite this, it reacts to light and touch through the nervous system and reflexes. The animal is able to smell, and if parts of its body are lost, it regenerates.

The most famous species, adapts well to natural conditions. The reproduction process is a little slower than others, but not significantly. Buyers prefer it.

Red (California) worms

This species reproduces quickly and can reproduce up to 1,500 of its own kind in a season. The average life expectancy is up to 16 years, with puberty starting at 3 months. The main and basic requirement for living conditions is warm soil.

They produce the highest quality fertilizer, but are capricious in nutrition compared to their counterparts. They are afraid of temperatures dropping to +10 °C.

Dendrobens

A specially bred hybrid for fishing. Differs in large sizes. The eggs can withstand sub-zero temperatures and have proven to work well in loosening and enriching the soil. Their length is up to 12 cm. They live 12 years or more.

Interestingly, one such worm can live on a hook in water for up to 10 hours, and you can catch up to three fish with it.

Mealworms

The best producers of humus and worm tea. They are unpretentious in nutrition, reproduce quickly and are resistant to temperature changes.

When starting your own business, it is important to know that it is impossible to breed different types of worms within the same container. Biological components secreted by one animal can be harmful to another.

Description of the breed

When compared with Californians, it should be noted that Prospectors can quite easily switch from one feed to another.

It can feed on almost any organic matter, including sludge from sewage treatment plants; the manure of any animal is suitable. Worms of this breed cope well not only with various organic agricultural and industrial wastes, processing them into humus.

The body of Prospector worms is elongated and round when cut. The front part is thickened, with well-developed muscles and darker than the tail, which is not only paler, but also thinner. Like ordinary earthworms, the body of prospectors is covered with bristles.

Prospectors

An adult has a small but noticeable thickening - a belt located in front. Egg cocoons are formed in this belt.

Worms comparison chart

How to grow worms at home

You can start a business even in an apartment; pets do not smell, do not make noise and do not create problems. Therefore, a place is allocated in a quiet corner, where there is no vibration and the air temperature does not rise above +30 °C. It is also important not to keep the worms in the cold.

When planning a serious enterprise for breeding subfoliates, you should prepare with documentation. First of all, they open an individual enterprise, then sign a contract for garbage removal and confirm ownership of the land. No additional paperwork is required.

Where to get worms and which ones are better

Selecting breeders for breeding is not difficult. You definitely won’t have to buy them; it’s better to stick with the local variety of earthworms. The collected material easily adapts to life in the nursery, is not picky about food and has good immunity to disease.

When the species is determined, the question arises of where and how to get the first biomaterial for breeding. To do this, create a trap in any place where animals live. Having dug a shallow hole, fill it with humus or manure, slightly moistening it. Cover the surface with cardboard or plywood and wait a week. After 7 days, the first residents will appear in the trap; they are carefully transferred to a box or other container prepared for pets, along with the contents of the pit. In order for a business to start generating income, up to 1000 pets are needed for every square meter of soil.

You can purchase several families from other worm farms or online. One livestock includes up to 1500 individuals. Before paying for your purchase, you need to look at it; the animals must be rich red in color and show mobility.

What you will need

Before you bring your pets, you need to find a place for them to live. Depending on the size of the planned business, the premises vary from a balcony to a garage or even a separate building.

In winter, the worms hibernate and the reproduction process stops, accordingly, and the business will not generate income. If you need a year-round source of sales, then you should take care of heating the premises.

It is equally important to stock up on containers for keeping animals, because the growing livestock will need to be resettled.

What to breed in

The choice of container depends entirely on the desires and capabilities of the breeder. The main thing is to maintain the size of the box so that 1-3 families fit in it; the area of ​​such a tank should be close to 1.5-2 square meters. Height - 40 cm.

Cardboard boxes are a good place to hatch worms, they are environmentally friendly and suitable for animal food. If the container becomes unusable, it is easy to replace.

Diagram: how to keep worms

Wooden boxes can be of different sizes; you need to make ventilation holes on the sides and be sure to provide a lid. In such conditions, humus and worm tea ripen well. The container is installed at a slight angle and an outlet is made for the liquid, from there it will be possible to drain the moisture. The tilt can be achieved by shortening the legs on one side.

In addition to containers, the following items of agricultural equipment will be needed to keep worms: scales, pitchforks, shovel, wheelbarrow, bucket. sieve. For home improvement, thermometers for soil and air, as well as a device for measuring soil acidity, are useful.

To make the worm feel comfortable, you need to choose the right soil mixture. ½ of the container is filled with pieces of cardboard mixed with humus. Ambient humidity 80%. To check the level, you don’t need any instruments; just take a handful of soil in your hand and squeeze it; if you can squeeze out a few drops of moisture, then the soil meets the standard.

Moving pets is easy, but when moving in, many mistakes are made. Having prepared the soil for the worms, you need to let it stand for a couple of days, during which time processes take place that result in the release of harmful ammonia. After a few days you can move in the animals. Invertebrates live in the middle layers, humus (the product of their vital activity) is located below, and liquid (so-called tea) settles to the bottom. When settling a family, they dig a hole, transfer future residents into it along with a soil mixture from their native places, and cover the surface with cardboard. If after a few days the worms crawl away, it means that adaptation is complete and food can be added.

Maintaining certain indoor parameters will also help produce healthy worms. The air temperature can fluctuate in the range of +18…+25 °C. The brightness of the light is 60 W per 20 square meters. Light ventilation is necessary. Water for moistening the soil mixture with worms should be settled, rain or melt. Chlorinated liquid makes pets feel unwell.

It is worth taking care of protection from natural enemies, such as rodents, moles, and rats.

How and what to feed

The diet of worms is not very special. They eat spoiled vegetables and fruits and other food waste. It is important to know what can be given to pets and in what consistency. In addition, a new portion of food is added only after the previous one is completed, otherwise old foods will begin to deteriorate, releasing harmful substances and increasing the acidity of the soil.

The worms are fed approximately once a week. In order to check whether the pets are hungry, they wet the paper and put it in a container; if the animals eat it, then you can add a new portion of food.

The crushed products are laid out in a thin layer and covered with earth on top so that there is no smell in the room.

Allowed

Stale bread, tea leaves, coffee grounds, crushed egg shells, banana and potato peelings, boiled vegetables, tops of fresh vegetables, cabbage and lettuce, chicken and cow waste products.

Forbidden

Citrus fruits and their peels, dairy products, meat products, hard vegetables (you can put them through a chopper, then you can). Manure and droppings must be fermented.

Necessary equipment, food, maintenance, etc.

In order to start a worm breeding business, you need to purchase and prepare the necessary equipment. As a rule, it is not much and it will not incur large financial costs.

To do this you will need:

• thermometer (for measuring soil and indoor air temperature);
• boxes (made of wood or plastic);
• scoops (for the convenience of placing food and soil in containers for worms);
• scales;
• sieve;
• buckets;
• You can purchase a special device that is used for growing worms and processing their organic waste - this is a specialized vermicomposter. This is a very convenient device for breeding, however, its cost reaches up to 12,000 rubles;

In practice, even experienced breeders use homemade boxes and crates. Their production does not require large financial costs.

The main condition for maintenance is access to air. It is necessary to drill holes in the boxes for free penetration of air and exit of excess liquid.

Soil selection

Properly laid soil affects the vital activity of worms and the speed of their reproduction.

Therefore, the choice of soil must be taken seriously:

• fill half the container with humus or compost (you can add crushed and soaked cardboard);
• moisten the composition and maintain humidity at 80%;
• after a few days, move the worms into prepared and settled soil;
• level the soil and cover with a lid;
• give the worms a couple of days to adapt and add food;

Feed

Almost anything can be added to the soil as feed:

• food waste;
• peeling vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets, zucchini, etc.);
• bread and bread crumbs;
• leftover tea or coffee;
• grass, foliage;
• rotted manure;

You should avoid adding citrus fruits, fresh manure, fresh meat, large pieces of vegetables and fruits (they must be chopped before adding).

What can you sell from a vermifarm?

The products from the worm farm are varied and the first results can be obtained after just six months.

To create a comfortable environment, animals are given regular inspections. Once every 5 months, carefully remove the top layer of soil, take out the pets and sort them by size. Small individuals are released back into the ground, while large ones are prepared for sale.

Also remove the bottom layer of humus and collect the liquid. These by-products are highly valued by gardeners as pure natural fertilizer. Sales can be agreed upon in advance or buyers can be found later. The product does not deteriorate and can remain in containers for a long time.

Profits from the worms come from fish farms, which are happy to buy clean pets. In addition, live food sells well in pet stores. By concluding agreements with several large companies, you can begin expanding your business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f9FGBBFTLM

Registration and registration of business

The registration procedure takes place in accordance with Federal Law No. 129 F3. Today, this is done by the Federal Tax Service, where the necessary documentation is submitted, and within 5 working days, a certificate of state registration and registration with the tax authorities is issued.

Next, the package of documents is forwarded to the statistics department, where a code is assigned, and extra-budgetary bodies are notified of the registration date and number.

Required documents:

1. Application for state registration signed by the applicant.
2. Passport and its notarized copy.
3. Receipt for payment of state duty.

Documentation can be submitted to the Tax Authorities in person or by registered mail, attaching a list of the contents.

Also, you need to register with the Social Fund. fear and open a bank account. The procedure for registering a worm breeding business is formalized on a general basis, in accordance with the Federal Law.

Profitability of business with worms

Calculating the expected profit is simple, suppose 10,000 rubles were spent on purchasing equipment and several families of animals.

The average growth and reproduction time is 6 months. Costs during this period are only for lighting and heating the premises; food for invertebrates can be obtained from the nearest supermarket, having agreed on the removal of food waste.

One individual costs, depending on the region, from 0.25 to 1 ruble. It is also worth noting that the business has a pronounced seasonality and in the spring and summer the price of animals rises.

Based on the maximum, that is, a ruble per piece, to summarize, for 1000 worms you receive an equivalent amount in rubles. Accordingly, raising a million invertebrates provides a good income.

Let's consider how long it will take to pay back. Each individual Californian red worm produces from 500 to 1500 offspring. Animals reach sexual maturity by 3 months, respectively, one family of 1000 sexually mature individuals can potentially increase to 1,000,000 per season.

It is important to understand that for such a number of animals you will need a place and living conditions.

To summarize, we can say that a worm farm pays for itself tenfold over the course of a season.

Breeding

The Prospector worm differs from ordinary raincoats in that it processes food much more actively and faster. With 1000 kilograms of substrate, as a result of the activity of the worm of this wonderful breed, more than 600 kg are obtained. humus. Increase in biomass approximately 10 kg.

Reproduction of Prospectors begins approximately from the third month of life and occurs weekly. Reproduction can occur either in pairs or unpaired. One young individual is able to produce from three to fifteen worms at a time, in two to three weeks. In this case, much depends on the correct temperature and feeding.

Before purchasing worms, the first thing you need to do is create the conditions in which they will be kept. These can be boxes made of plastic or wood about forty centimeters deep.

Due to its unpretentiousness, this species can be bred in the most ordinary home conditions, and the following premises are ideal:

• car garage;
• basement;
• cellar;
• extension.

The optimal temperature range is 16-24 degrees.

In general, the breeding and rearing of worms of the Staratel breed is the same as for ordinary species, the breeding of which we have already written about in the article: Domestic worms - maintenance, feeding, breeding and care

Advantages and disadvantages

Breeders say there are virtually no flaws in the worm business. Invertebrates are unpretentious, do not get sick, and do not require medical attention. They feed on organic waste, which is free and always available.

The rate of reproduction of families with proper care is so high that expansion of production becomes necessary even before the completion of the first season.

You can start a business without any investment at all by collecting biological material in a nearby park and gradually increasing your turnover, spending your profits on the purchase of the necessary equipment.

VIDEO Who needs worms? Worm Prospector

Let's first understand what kind of worm you have to work with. This worm was obtained by crossing in the laboratory by Professor A.M. Igonin. local earthworms with the Kyrgyz earthworm Eisenia foetida. It turns out that the Prospector worm belongs to the species of earth compost (dung) worms Eisenia foetida.

The advantages of this worm are that it allows you to speed up the processing of organic waste into vermicompost; it also:

• a new generation of worm can be transferred to a new type of food; if adult worms are suddenly transferred to a new type of food, there is a high probability that they will die
• able to survive and maintain productivity in dense populations, provided food is available
• is in an active “working” state and is able to reproduce at temperatures from +8 to + 29 degrees
• Cocoons are laid at temperatures between +8 and + 10 degrees
• differs from an ordinary earthworm in its perseverance in the substrate (substrate is a nutrient medium on which animals, plants and microorganisms live and develop)
• 1 ton of compost produces 600 kg of vermicompost