Multiply Rapidly

The small red worms (Rumbricus Rubellus) are ideal for composting, giving you with vermiculite in exchange for your kitchen and garden trash. The red worms multiply in such a rate that a healthy colony will double it's numbers every month. You can calculate how much worms you take from the wormbox without negatively influencing the colony's size, as you wish to keep this in a growing rate. So my guess is you take 25% away every month, so you have a 25% extra amount of worms as added growth of the colony still left.

Month 1: 1000 worms (may cost $30 USD or less)
Month 2: 2000 worms - 500 worms (25%) = 1500 worms left to reproduce
Month 3: 3000 worms - 750 worms (25%) = 2250 worms left to reproduce
Month 4: 4500 worms - 1125 worms (25%) = 3375 worms left to reproduce
Month 5: 6750 worms - 1687 worms (25%) = 5063 worms left to reproduce
Month 6: 10126 worms - 2531 worms (25%) = 7595 worms left to reproduce

As you can see, even with taking off 25% each month of the healthy colony you can have a 750% increase of your population within half a year. Each additional month will provide you with enough worms to feed chickens (kept for the eggs) and fish (fishfarm-food). Keeping worms means you can feed fish and chickens (chickens also need other foods!). A thriving colony, expanding every month, will need more food every month, too! This can and has happened on many occasions with people keeping red worms, where they did not have enough rubbish to feed the worms! You can of course solve this by taking 50% of the worm colony instead of 25% each month, once the colony has reached the size where you can just feed them. This benefits the other animals you keep which eat the worms.

Offered by Michel.

The Chicago Tribune carried a story last week about maintaining Worm Bins, and it was carried by our
newspaper here in Pennsylvania. Interesting that it appeared on the Kids page! A couple tips from the story:

- Feed the worms scraps from fruit, vegetables, grains, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, bread crust, corn cobs, pasta, and cereal.

- Don't feed them meat, fish, cheese, bones, gravies, salad dressings, butter, or salty foods like chips.

Offered by Mike.