Worm Meal
Worm Meal or Vermimeal is an excellent source of protein and nutrients.
Earthworms typically contain over 80% moisture and can be fed directly to animals. To preserve the worms and process them into to a more convenient food they can be dried and ground up into worm meal.
Once they have been dried and processed into worm meal they will have a typical analysis as follows:
- 57% Protein
- 3% Fat
- 11% Ash
- 0.7% Crude Fibre
- 18% N-free Extract
In addition to the protein, worms are a valuable source of essential amino acids and vitamins. The fats in worms are highly unsaturated and no additional antioxidants need to be added to the worm meal to preserve it.
Worm meal may replace fish meal and meat and bone meal. “Broilers fed with earthworm meal consumed 13% less feed for the same weight gain than those fed with ordinary broiler diet, but given live in earthworms matured 15 days earlier than the control group without earthworms” (Ref: Handbook on Ingredients for Aquaculture Feeds by Joachim W. Hertrampf, Felicitas Piedad-Pascual).