So you have an earthworm bed or two and want to make a profit from your hard work and start a business. You can put your earthworms in cups and sell to established bait and tackle shops or you can open your own shop or do both. My father started out by selling wholesale and eventually opened up his own shop.
In my opinion selling wholesale is a lot tougher with smaller returns. You have to establish a territory, visit the shops, convince the business owners to buy your worms and do a lot of driving. You have to sell your earthworms at a competitive lower price for bulk and you have to stand behind your product. That means that if worms die they have to be replaced.
I was a sales rep for a company when my father was getting his shop established and did a lot of local driving own my own. At the time, my dad had four large worm beds and an over abundance of earthworms. He got a business license and put up a sign on some property he owned and before you knew it fishermen were stopping by to buy worms. He put fifty in each cup and they couldn't sell fast enough. As a sales rep, I would run into fishing tackle wholesalers on the road and asked them to drop by my dads place and see if they could help get him into selling tackle.
He started selling cane poles, hooks, bobbers, leads and even bought a tank to sell minnows and shiners. But his main product were the earthworms. They were easy to maintain and the overhead consisted of buying Styrofoam cups and lids, bags of feed, water for the beds and paying someone to count and cup the worms. If he had known that people would actually pay for the casings he would have sold that too but he gave it away to friends. His shop gained a good reputation and was always busy. I worked for him part time maintaining the beds and digging earthworms. He got out of selling earthworms wholesale and sold strictly from his small business from then on.
Can't I Just Use Garden Worms In My Worm Farm?/ By Joe Serpico
If you're interested in vermicomposting, typically referred to
as worm farming, you may have noticed that there are a lot of
worms living in your garden soil. If so, I can't blame you for
wondering why you couldn't just use them in a worm farm and save
the cost of buying special worms, as recommended by most experts.
Actually, you can use common garden worms in a worm farm, but
you may not want to. After all, the whole reason for having a
worm farm is in order to get that finished compost product,
known as castings or vermicast. Any readers not familiar with
the worm farming process may be surprised to learn that these
castings are actually worm excrement - but it's an odorless
'earth-like' product that makes a great fertilizer or soil
amendment. Anyway, It's true that you'll save money initially
with the garden worms, but you'll pay a penalty when it comes to
the amount of castings that they produce.
You see, most worms normally found in garden soil normally live
quite a bit deeper in the soil than the preferred composting
type. These garden worms prefer the nutrients found deep in the
soil, so that's why they like to habitate there. They don't
adapt real well to being enclosed in a worm farm, and since they
don't normally eat the type of waste material you'll be feeding
them, they will process much less of it than the worms typically
used for vermicomposting. Basically, what you'll have is a
poorly perfoming system, which sort of defeats the whole idea of
worm farming, which is to make the composting process much more
efficient.
The type of worms preferred for worm farming like to live near
the surface of the soil where they can reach the food they
favor, such as leaf litter or other plant debris. The most
popular of these preferred worms is called the red wiggler, or
sometimes just the redworm.
These types of worms are usually available for less than twenty
dollars a pound. Normally, you'll only need a pound or two to
get started, and should never have to add any more, as they will
multiply dramatically in a well-run farm. If you don't have a
supplier near you, just do an internet search for 'worm farm
supplies' in your state or geographical area.
When you purchase worms like this, you remove any question about
whether or not they're suited for the task, since they've been
raised under the very conditions you'll be asking them to live
in, which should allow them to be prolific composters. And
that's what worm farming is all about!
About the author:
If you want to read more about how to get started with worm
farming, and learn about things such as worm
farm designs, head on over to Joe's site.
as worm farming, you may have noticed that there are a lot of
worms living in your garden soil. If so, I can't blame you for
wondering why you couldn't just use them in a worm farm and save
the cost of buying special worms, as recommended by most experts.
Actually, you can use common garden worms in a worm farm, but
you may not want to. After all, the whole reason for having a
worm farm is in order to get that finished compost product,
known as castings or vermicast. Any readers not familiar with
the worm farming process may be surprised to learn that these
castings are actually worm excrement - but it's an odorless
'earth-like' product that makes a great fertilizer or soil
amendment. Anyway, It's true that you'll save money initially
with the garden worms, but you'll pay a penalty when it comes to
the amount of castings that they produce.
You see, most worms normally found in garden soil normally live
quite a bit deeper in the soil than the preferred composting
type. These garden worms prefer the nutrients found deep in the
soil, so that's why they like to habitate there. They don't
adapt real well to being enclosed in a worm farm, and since they
don't normally eat the type of waste material you'll be feeding
them, they will process much less of it than the worms typically
used for vermicomposting. Basically, what you'll have is a
poorly perfoming system, which sort of defeats the whole idea of
worm farming, which is to make the composting process much more
efficient.
The type of worms preferred for worm farming like to live near
the surface of the soil where they can reach the food they
favor, such as leaf litter or other plant debris. The most
popular of these preferred worms is called the red wiggler, or
sometimes just the redworm.
These types of worms are usually available for less than twenty
dollars a pound. Normally, you'll only need a pound or two to
get started, and should never have to add any more, as they will
multiply dramatically in a well-run farm. If you don't have a
supplier near you, just do an internet search for 'worm farm
supplies' in your state or geographical area.
When you purchase worms like this, you remove any question about
whether or not they're suited for the task, since they've been
raised under the very conditions you'll be asking them to live
in, which should allow them to be prolific composters. And
that's what worm farming is all about!
About the author:
If you want to read more about how to get started with worm
farming, and learn about things such as worm
farm designs, head on over to Joe's site.
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