Q&A for How to Start a Worm Farm for Profit

Yes, just make sure you cover up the food scraps with shredded paper or other bedding.

It can, but you also need to give your worms some sources of good nutrition, like veggie peelings.

You should start on a lower scale as a hobby and see what profits you can turn. There's no guarantee that you will be able to make enough profits to raise your family on them, and even if you manage, it will likely take a while to get to that point. So don't just drop your job unless you're at the point where your business is clearly going to be profitable.

You can start new bedding when you notice the bedding level has dropped down considerably as the worms work through the organic material and food scraps. You can use old shredded papers and grass clippings as new bedding to refill the worm farm.

Yes. Either or both can be used.

Night crawlers are a type of worm. 2000 of them weigh 2 pounds. So a ratio of 2 pounds of worms to 1 pound of food is ideal.

Yes, my daughter has a rabbit and puts his droppings in there after she soaks them in water to remove extra pee.

Yes, any vegetable peelings will work well, as well as cornmeal.

Gardens thrive with the addition of worm castings. Worm castings are purchased from suppliers expressly for this reason. Castings are the worm poop. Worms assist in aerating soil. Worms also are purchased for fishing.

As long as they can get rid of all waste by the next day and it doesn’t start to rot inside, yes.

Yes, you can. Just ensure the leaves and grass are fairly damp and place them in the bin. The worms will eat it. Be careful of too much green grass though, as it tends to heat up when dampened and starts to decompose.

No. Blood worms are a totally different critter. This is for standard earth worms and manure worms.

Worms are hermaphrodites, so they have both male and female organs!

Use a mixture of peat moss and manure, preferably cow. Make sure that the manure does not have any de-worming chemicals in it, however! Also, consider adding some garden lime for calcium. Do not use slaked or dehydrated lime for this, however.

There are many different ways to do that -- check out YouTube for videos on how to harvest worms.

You may want to find gardeners, as they will usually pay you a good sum of money for worms.

Yes. Worms are everywhere. Put a worm tower in your garden, put some scraps in it, and they will come to your garden.

Yes. Without worms the food will decompose much slower, and you will run out of space fast. In addition, it will begin to stink. The worms are the primary decomposers in this type of project and allow you to decompose much more food in a shorter period of time.

No, you shouldn't need a permit.

If you have a garden, you can dig with a small shovel. Or you can wait for it to rain and they will come onto your sidewalk/driveway.

You can harvest the castings when they fall through the bottom holes into the second container or once every two weeks. With a watering can, pour through a gallon of water and catch it in a bucket as it drains though the castings and you will have worm tea, juice better known as liquid fertilizer or liquid gold for your garden.

A worm tower is a long tube (usually PVC pipe) with holes drilled into it that is placed vertically deep into the garden. Food scraps go directly in the tube. The benefit of this is that the worms help loosen up the soil deep in the garden and excrete, encouraging roots to grow deeper.

Yes, it is great for worms. Some people even build hutches over a worm bed so it just falls right in and the worms can break it down.

Yes, assuming that you can ensure that your worms have the right environment, adequate food sources, etc.

Pig manure has too high of a nitrogen content to used exclusively in a worm farm. A small amount can be mixed in with horse or cow dung.

You can easily buy worms online. Uncle Jim's Worm farm is a good place to start - they deliver to you and you can pick them up from the post office or have them sent right to you. Keep in mind that worms do die in extreme heat or extreme cold, so it might be better to have them sent to a post office.

Wait til it rains, then grab a bucket and head out. Do this preferably at night, and bring a flashlight. The water in the ground will saturate the soil and, since worms can't breath in situations like that, they come up to the surface. This is where you begin to gather your worms. A couple of hours, and you should have a 3 lb. can full!

No, not until you begin to sell them. Even then, in most locales a simple ($50 - 100) business license will suffice.

Test out your soil compared to the competitor, see how your worms perform as bait compared to the competitor, show that you have a better product. Go to farmers markets and fishing supply shops and get your name out there. Pass out business cards, tell your early clients to tell their friends. You might also want to create a website and/or social media presence.

No. Traditional composting will create high temperatures as the waste decomposes. These temperatures can kill the worms. Worm farming requires moderate temperatures that keep the worms comfortable for living and reproducing.