suggestions appreciated

[cff]

I have been keeping a few rabbits over two worm beds for several years; this summer I sold out of rabbits and didn't pay the worm beds a lot of attention. One of the two beds got too dry and died out, I had always dumped the rabbit's water into the beds when I changed it and I didn't think about how dry the beds got with out that daily drench until it was too late.

My old rabbit barn was in bad shape and I tore it down about six weeks ago. The weekend after I found a good deal on some more New Zealand white rabbit's and since I still had the empty cages I took them home with me. I set some of the rabbits back over the one living worm bed and in just a few weeks it took off and started making a nice turn around.

I have a small four by eight shed over this one worm bed but not nearly enough room for all the rabbits I have now so I decided tonight that I was going to start a new barn for the rabbits. I also want to add worm beds under the pens built from concrete blocks but I really don't want the expense of a concrete floor in the new barn. Will the worms stay put on the dirt floor?

I'm also going to try to build a worm harvesters but I noticed that there are three different screen sizes 1/8th 1/4 and 1/2 inch. I would like to be able to sell castings at some point so should I use the 1/8th wire for the homemade harvester ?

All suggestions appreciated

[Alan]

Sorry I didn't see this thread before....

I'll try to answer some questions for you here.

As far as the worms staying on the ground, If there is sufficient, loose, compostable material on the ground that will not heat up and that will provide plenty of feed for the worms then yes they should "theoretically stay there, however, if I were you, I would at least attempt to dig a bit of a pit, maybe 5 inches or so deep and throw in some neutral material like spaghnum peat moss or shreaded newspapper (soy ink only, no glossy stuff) for the worms to use for bedding, because if for some reason they start to mass produce and eat throught the manure faster than the rabbits can produce a substantial amount, they will definetly start to wonder around and may leave the area, however if they have a suitable bed with a good layer of material in it, then they will continue to live there and reproduce so long as there is more food coming in. Also, without a light on over them, if it rains or they are overcrowded then yest they will try to "migrate" on you.

My homemade harvester uses only one layer of 1/4 inch hardware cloth and works great in seperating out the castings while letting the worms and unfinished food and betting pass out the other end, I however do need to make a platform to turn the thing on, as it is now I have to manually turn it by hand which is absolutely no fun whatsoever.

You can get a "finer" grade of worm castings with smaller holes or even with two differen gages of wire, the larger inside of the smaller, however it won't make that much of a difference in my honest opinon because for the most part the castings tend to be the same size and shape and will fall out of a smaller hole just the same as they would a larger one and I can't see that a smaller set of wire would save any of the coccons or small worms from passing through the screen anyhow.

I hope this helps and like I said, I am so sorry I didn't see this before. Let me know if you have any other questions because I would be glad to help you out.

By the way, I hope you didn't throw out the bedding from the dead bin, those coccons can survive just darn near anything and if you add a little bit of water to the mix you might just be able to get those coccons to hatch and re-occupy your bin!
-alan

[cff]

Well I decided to keep the containers but cut them down to about 16 inches so I could sit beside them to harvest castings, there's so much material in a 4 by 4 square plastic tub and it's difficult to remove it bending over the side of the tub for several hours at a time; shifting through the castings almost killed my back this weekend.

The dead bin is shot for sure, I've checked it several times recently but nothing in it. We had about 8 weeks of triple digit temperature this summer along with the worst drought we've ever seen in our area. The dead bin was completely under the shed and dryer than a limestone rock in an oven.

The other bin was sitting slightly out from under the shed and building numbers slowly so I harvested some of the worms from it and added them to the dead bin.

I made a 2 foot square shaker box with 1/8 th hardware cloth on the bottom and screened out about 350 / 400 lbs of castings from the dead bin before I quit. (Carolina has a happy garlic bed this week)

I'll probably add some new worms to bolster the beds some once I finish the rabbit barn and add some more tubs under them. Alan I'll hit you up with a PM when I finish up and take a few lbs of worms from ya.

The price of lumber has given me a mild case of shock and I really need to add some new rabbit pens to the new barn. Knowing my return on this investment is going to be in the luxury of having a good supply of castings and a few rabbits to sale from time to time I need to take my time so I don't kill over from sticker shock. There seems to be an endless supply of bait dealers here in the Carolina's so I doubt I'll get to sale very many fishing worms and rabbits are dirt cheap right now.

This has been a tough year on the farm; the heat and drought wreaked havoc on our gardens and we were really lucky to get one cutting of hay. The price of livestock in our area is rock bottom going into winter; no one wants to buy feed all winter.

What's does a farmer have to do to make the ends meet someplace around the farm ?

[Alan]

I know what you mean about making ends meet, exspecially in the winter time....just keep on diversifying and looking for ways to make your diverse activities as close to self-sustainable and free as possible.

Do you have a woodlot? Though it takes several years to get a good crop, Ginseng could bring you a good amount of money from a pretty small area.

Also, don't give up on selling those worms, make you up some cheap business cards and go to every bait shop that you can find, as well as gas stations, mom and pop stores, and even vegetable stands and strike up a conversation about fishing, or about being a farmer, then talk up your worm operation (which in time you can build up). Even if these guys have full time worm suppliers mention something along the lines of "well, if for some reason you ever run out or your guy can't provide you with what you need, heres my card, give me a call, I deliever." You would be suprised sometimes at the amount of calls you might get! That's where I have been able to get my foot in the door, it seems the local supplier this year missed some deliveries for a couple of weeks, so I got his buisiness in my county and part of the county to the south for 2008!

Just got to produce a lot of good sized worms!


Make sure and use some wood ash or dolomite lime on that old worm bed, when worms die and "melt" they produce a lot of very acidic nitrogen from their boddies and the new worms won't like those bed conditions very well, just something to keep an eye on, I throw a couple hand fulls on about every 2 weeks, usually the same time I turn the beds and feed.

I made a flat harvester like that as well, but I think my other one worked a little better.

What I did was to take a five gallon bucket, cut it into and cut the bottom out of the end, then I took a piece of 1/4" hardware cloth and wraped it between the two buckets and used a drill to make holes in the buckets throgh which I used tie straps (those black plastic lock-in place things) to attach the hardware cloth to the bucket.

Here is a good explanation, you can ignore the forums it is presented on, and rest assured it wasn't me, however you gotta admit stoners come up with some great ideas:

www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13407

This will give you some good pics and directions for building a cheap but effective worm harvester that has worked well for me. I just use a potato fork and a bucket and grab a bucket full of bedding and worms, dump it into the harvester, giver her a few spins and that seperates the castings really well, worms and unfinished bedding comes out the other end, usually I run the same material through twice, just to seperate some more castings.

Hope this helps you.
-Alan

[cff]

Alan"

I have a question for you.

A good friend offered me twelve new 45 gallon Rubbermade totes, these are pretty nice and free.

If you were going to start a worm population in a 45 gallon tote how many pounds of worms would you use for each???

[Alan]

sorry I once again missed this post somehow. In any worm house you calculate the poundage of worms by square feet, a square foot of surface area can support somewhere around 2 lbs of worms (some people say 1, but I say 2). That's about the easiest way to figure up what you would need to start with. You could however start with less and just let them breed up to size over the winter months which is what I did last year and had absolutely no problem getting the population up and going.

Hope this helps, by the way those totes are great for worm bins, just drill you some holes in the bottom and sides for drainage as well as air ventilation and they do a great job.

-Alan

[bluelacedredhead]

I'm reading a book about composting which has a chapter dedicated to vermiculture. They speak of a friend who keeps a worm bin atop a dishwasher, using a chopping board for a lid. Once the veggies are chopped, the scrapings go immediately into the bin and the chopping board lid goes back in place...

I'm not squeamish but that's just a little weird for me, Blech

[cff]

BLRH"

If everything is going as it should in a worm bin there's very little smell and no real bad smells. It has a fresh dirt sort of smell most of the time.

My one dead bin is slowly taking off back to life, I recently limed both bins and the rabbits are keeping a steady supply of fresh manure that I turn under about every three days. The soil in both bins is rich and dark, I have started to save the castings for a seed starter mix this coming spring. I doubt I could buy anything as nice as what the rabbits and worms are producing.

I've got a good start on the new rabbit shed and I picked up two new New Zealand does last night at the local critter auction that were already bred. I'm almost sure the pens will be full of young rabbits before I finish the new shed.

So much to do and so little time

[cff]

Alan"

Thanks for the information, I actually don't remember how many pounds of worms I first started with in the two big bins I have. I have already drilled the totes and there ready but dang 24 lbs of worms would be expensive.

I'm going to wait till spring and see how many more lbs I'll need after utilizing as much of my own stock as I can but I know I'll be way short of being able to start all twelve bins.

How soon or during what month in the spring can you safety ship worms?

[Alan]

Hmmm, that's a good question about shipping, I will look into it and see what I found out. Trust me though, you don't need 24 lbs, just a few lbs, they will breed to capacity quickly as long as they have plenty of good food, if you want them to breed even faster then feed them a little bit of chicken egg maker mash and watch them go, trust me on that

I'll look into shipping and see what I can find out.

-Alan

[plantsnobin]

Rabbits and worms are a perfect combo. Many rabbit producers sell worms and castings as a way to make the rabbits more profitable. The people who we currently buy our food and supplies from give away their castings! I think I probably offended them with my reaction to that news, didn't mean to make it sound like they were crazy. But, that is crazy. These people are about 5 miles from the Worms Way headquarters in Bloomington, IN. They could be selling to them. I like my neighbors, but bills have to be paid, and with the 180 rabbits they have, they could be selling huge quantities of castings. Anyway, if you don't mind my being nosey, how much does a good meat rabbit go for in your part of the country? Do you ever go to any shows? I thought my husband had lost his mind when he wanted to start showing, but there are a lot of folks whose kids have grown up, left the rabbits and then the parents start showing. It is a good way to meet nice people with similar interests.

[cff]

Hello plantsnobin

Around our part of the Carolina's fryers at 5 lbs go for about $6.00 / $8.00. (depending on the buyer) and your own personal salesmanship.

Full grown breeding stock can go for $12.00 to $20,00 dollars (depending on the buyer)

I saw several bred does bring $22.00 / $25.00 a few weeks ago at the local critter auction and I picked up two bred does this past Saturday at the same auction from the same seller for $6.00 each.

The best money always seems to come from the buyer who searches you out, when your offering rabbits for sale (going to the buyer) the worst prices always seemed to be the results.

I don't show any of the rabbits although it does sound like fun; my son and I use to show bantams and it was fun but it always had a lot of politics involved and I'm the most (un-political) person you'll ever meet.

[plantsnobin]

We usually sell our 8 week old bunnies for $6, which is too cheap, but we sell mostly to local 4H kids. Top quality Californians and New Zealands go for about $150 a trio. But, that is really top quality bloodlines. We mostly have mini lops, they make really good pets for kids. We have just started getting into the shows, I never really realized grown people did this. I hate to admit it, but we drove 6 hours and paid $175 for two rabbits from a bloodline that my husband really wanted. The first show we entered them in, they didn't place as well as the rabbit we 'only' paid $40 for. I don't mind taking care of the rabbits, because I love the manure for the garden. Good luck with the worms. With the combo of the rabbits, the worms and the castings, I think you can do OK financially. Hope it works well for you.

[cff]

I didn't know show rabbits cost that much, most of my customers are looking for a fairly cheap rabbit dinner

At one time we had a small rabbit processing plant in our area who would purchase fryer size rabbits; it didn't last long and it went under. Actually I think FDA helped it go under. They didn't pay a lot but it was a good outlet to move numbers through for a short time.

The critter auction is also a good outlet but you can never tell what rabbits will bring on any given weekend; most of the time I hang a " rabbits for sale sign " out by the road. I sometime do the same with goats farm vegetables and horse hay with pretty good results.

Admittedly I'm not a great salesman; I wasn't born with the gift of great conversation that some people seem to have naturally so I always seem to be a little under what the market will actually pay.

[Alan]

looks like i'm getting ready to expand out to 15 new beds in the next month or two. After I get the two new greenhouses up i'm looking at buying a 20 X 48 cold frame for nothing but worms and I might have to just to accomidate the bait shops and my own fertilizer use, but thats a good thing!