Simple Home Made Worm Farm
A simple home made worm farm is really just a container in which the worms can be placed.
The most popular kind of container is made from plastic and is square or rectangular. These plastic containers are available from plastic shops and retail stores. Sizes will vary but a container 60 cm long by 40 cm wide by 40 cm high will maintain a population of around 15,000 worms. You can also knock together a wooden structure in which your worms can be farmed
The size of a home made worm farm can be small or big and the population that can be maintained is determined by its surface area. To calculate the number of worms that your container can support multiply the length by width in centimeters and multiply by a factor of 6.25.
As the worms are such prolific breeders we always recommend that you start with a smaller number of worms. They will soon breed and fill your worm farm. A thousand worms is a good quantity of worms to start most farms with.
The worm farm to the left has lots of small holes drilled in the bottom. These holes are very important for ventilation purposes. This worm farm also has two larger holes drilled in the sides, these holes allow for air to circulate from the top of the farm to the bottom. They should be covered with some sort of insect proof fabric or your farm will become infested with insects. You should also make sure that you make some sort of lid that will seal the top of the farm, this will prevent the worms escaping and pests getting in.
The advantages of this design are:
- It is very simple to manufacture
- the containers are easy to find
- they are quick to start
- they are cost effective
The disadvantages of this design are:
- There is no provision for expansion
- there is no easy way to harvest the castings, you will need to empty the entire contents of the farm and separate the worms by hand
- when harvesting the castings you will probably loose a large percentage of cocoons
Building a simple home made worm farm like this is a good place to start worm farming when resources are limited, but we do recommend that you rather invest in a vertical type of farm as these are much easier to maintain and operate.