If you want to know what do worms eat, learn the fundamentals of their feed. Worms are crucial for a worm farm’s success. It is very important to understand the amount, preparation, and installation of the bins as well as what does earthworms eat. And if you make a mistake, you can run into various issues with worm farming, such as bad scents or even the death of your worms.
In this article, we will learn about what do worms eat? What Nutrients Do Worms Have? What Pet Animals Eat Worms? And what are the preparations you have to take to have a Worm and Bin? And much more!
What Does EarthWorms Eat?
Before you know what nutrients and benefits worms have, you need to know what do worms eat?
So, earthworms can eat vegetable peelings, fruit scraps, paper scraps, newspaper, tea bags/coffee grounds, eggshells, and leafy green vegetables.
- Likes: The juicer pulp, remnants of fruit and vegetables, cooked meals, sawdust, and untreated wood ash.
- Dislikes: Skin of citrus fruits, acidic, spicy cuisine, onion, goose, leek, capsicum, etc. Meat and dairy products, bread, pasta, and products of processed wheat, paper, oils, or fats.
Feeding
- Make a shallow hole in your bed and make fine cuts in the hole of the kitchen. Worms cannot devour big food pieces.
- Worms will consume any remaining food but avoid meat, cheese, and other animal products, since stinky food can attract rats.
- At least once a week, add smashed eggs as these offer nutrients that worms require.
- Cover the scraps with bedding and place at a different area each time.
- One worm eats almost half its weight per day.
What Does EarthWorms Eat in the Wild?
Worms can quickly eat squash, pumpkin, cantaloupe, and cucurbits because they have high sugar content, unlike plants such as broccoli.
Earthworms also like to eat banana peels, and if you put the peels in their basin, you will find worms gathering around them and maybe not find peels in a few days. They are always welcoming the banana peeling as if it is their guest of honor.
Your worms will devour almost any veggie scrap in meals. Carrot peelings are ideal for a worm container, as well as cauliflower, potato peels, and broccoli stalks, lettuce, kale, and even onion peels, in a small amount.
What Nutrients Do Worms Have?
Since you now know what do worms eat, let’s move on to the nutrients that worms can offer to your pets when you serve them as feed to them. Apart from that, you can even eat them yourself!
Worms are a good source of protein, iron, and amino acids that are crucial in rebuilding your bodily tissue. Copper, manganese, and zinc are also accessible. Earthworms are also a source of calcium. Cast water-soluble worms help plants absorb vital nutrients and trace minerals rapidly and readily. Nutrients are easily accessible for a longer time to plant material and do not burn even the most sensitive plants. Worms are rich in iron, sulfur, calcium, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
The Benefits of Worms for Nature
Organic material recycling
Earthworms degrade organic material along with bacteria and fungus. The majority of people are aware of earthworms and compost. Earthworms play a similar role as compost in the pasture, decaying manure, and plant litter.
Enhanced availability of nutrients
After worms digest their food, nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen become more easily accessible for plants. Worms carry nutrients down into the roots of plants through soil.
Soil structure enhancement
Earthworm burrows change the soil’s physical structure. They open up areas inside the soil. When worms enter soils, they can lead to water penetration rates up to 10 times higher than initial levels. This improves the access of roots of plants to water and soluble nutrients.
Worms loosen and ventilate the soil and enhance the soil drainage. The infiltration of water can be up to 6 times greater in zero-till soils when worms are plentiful. Worms also create tunnels that operate as passages for lime and other substances under the effect of rain, irrigation, and gravity.
Productivity improvement
New Zealand and Tasmania research on earthworms revealed that earthworms in pastures produce an initial 70% boost in pasture growth, with a long-term 20% rise.
Give other significant species a food supply
Worms are also highly significant in the food chain since they are vital to distribute nutrients and organisms and decompose debris. The conservation of worms is critical to help preserve soil health and balanced nutrients.
Guidelines
Worm bins are not difficult to manage; you should be providing a healthy, productive composting environment; following these guidelines will show you how to do so.
Do not add water to the worm bucket unless much of the bin material is excessively dry. Some worm bin producers propose that you add water to boost the “worm tea” output. The fluid drained from your worm bin is highly concentrated, and leachate damages plants if not diluted heavily with water.
You should add several dry shredded papers and include more oxygen into your worm compost.what does earthworms eat. Give the dry shredded paper and the bedding every couple of weeks and grab the base of the rack carefully to avoid too much damage to the worms.
If your bottom material seems damp and has a little smell, these are signals that it is necessary to add the air in your system and to increase drainage. Allow your nose to be your guide. Lift the deck and take a good sniff every time you feed your worms. Perhaps you have added green garbage, which makes the smell, or your worm cup is anaerobic. Lift the base and the materials underneath the system to provide air.
Maintain your worm in an area where the temperature is reasonably steady; neither warm nor cold. Never hold your worm in a location exposed to light and a colder environment at 5°C.
Watch for worm predators if you keep your worm bin outside.Moles and birds love to eat worms, and even dogs enjoy them! Keep your worm indoors, ideally in your garage.
Tips About What Do Worms Eat
Knowing what do worms eat is important; follow these tips to know more.
Tiny foodstuffs are beneficial, and worms can eat them efficiently. As a result, they will accelerate composting. It is not suggested to cutting large portions of food to feed worms.
Before adding it to your worm compost, you may purée, freeze or microwave food scraping to break the material. Before you add food to your worm container, make sure that you restore the food to room temperature.
Worms may eat a meal to half their weight daily. what does earthworms eat is the big quistion.Before adding additional food, please ensure that worms actively consume the food you have provided lately. On average, overfeeding is not recommended. The amount of kitchen garbage you create might take longer or shorter.
What Pet Animals Eat Worms?
Birds:
There are a few pet birds that can eat worms. You may choose your favorite bird, such as budgie, cockatiels, and doves, and all of them eat worms.
Fishes:
Most fish like worms. Striped bass, catfish, bullheads, bluegills, and crappie can eat worms.
Frogs:
Pet frogs such as Waxy Monkey Frog, Fire-Belly Toad, Tomato Frog, and White’s Tree Frog will feed on worms using their long, sticky tongue.
Turtles:
These gorgeous exotic pets also consume tiny insects and worms. Pet turtles that can eat worms are Snapping turtles, Box turtles, Painted turtles, and Red-Eared sliders.
Lizards: Snakes:
If you’re on the reptile side, Lizards like Bearded dragons can eat earthworms.
Snakes:
Many pet snakes feed on worms such as Ringneck Snake, Western Hognose Snake, Children’s Python, and Smooth Green Snake.
Worm Bin Preparation
Suitable Place
You have to keep worms in a small bin, 1 (Height) x 2 (Depth) x 3 (Width).
Maintain temperatures from 40 to 80°F.
Some people like to keep worms in their basement or somewhere outside the home, but not outside where predators can eat them. You also can hold them inside your house in the appropriate odorless bin.
Purchase Indoor Composting Bin
There are various indoor compost bins available. Bins can transform some of your trash into beneficial compost.
Establish a Worm Bin Yourself
Choose whatever case you like (Using exterior plywood and construction lumber) as a bin for your worms. You may start building a box with the dimensions as 1H x 2D x 3W.
Avoid using “Pressure-treated wood”, which includes chemicals that could be dangerous for your worms.
You are allowed to do painting around the bin and impress the family with your drawing skills. However, you are not allowed to draw inside the container.
To provide drainage, make 15 holes (1-inch) in the bin’s bottom.
You can purchase worms online or locally and raise them for fishing or feeding certain pets as mentioned above.
If you have, for example, 2 lbs. of earthworms, you can feed them 1 lb. of the garbage.
Raising worms is easy. You can feed them (daily, twice, or once a week) products like lettuce leaves, potato peels, tea/coffee grounds, pea shells, spaghetti, moldy bread, and corn shucks. Instead of chopping the garbage food, just let the worms do that for you.
Temperature
Worms live and reproduce at 55 to 85°F. Intensive cocoons manufacture and hatching should be made easier by bed temperatures between 60°F and 70°F. If the container temperatures are very high, they can be reduced by adding water.
Humidity
Earthworms require sufficient moisture to breathe in their skin. The container must be 60 to 85 percent moisture and must feel crumbly moist, not soaked. Do not dry off or overheat by direct exposure to sunlight. One way to enhance the creation of cocoons after worms is to cease watering the container for several days or until the 1 or 2″ top is hardly damp. Dampen the bedding sufficiently to return them to the moisture level you want.
Ventilation
Worms could remain alive even in the water when they retain dissolved oxygen and survive in relatively low oxygen and high carbon dioxide situations. However, earthworms may perish if there is no oxygen. If you maintain the earthworm bin excessively damp or provide extensive feed, they may lose the oxygen. Smoothness will be restored when the amount of moisture is reduced, the feed reduced, and the pile turned with a pitchfork or a three-piece garden tool.
Acidity Alkalinity
Acidity alkalinity pH ranges between 6.0 to 7.0. The fact that an alkaline situation exists is significantly less often. Mix enough dry peat mouse in the bedding to correct alkalinity until pH measurements suggest a range between 6.0 and 7.0. Check pH levels in garden or feeder stores on a weekly basis. Take measurements from several levels in the bin; top feed, 3 cm deep, and 8 cm deep.
If you find acidity in an earthworm container, you can add agricultural lime to remediate the problem with liners. Then sprinkle on all 24 square feet of bedding and wet the bed with about half a pound of limestone.
If you put the trash in sequence at different locations over several days, it won’t return to the same place twice. Thus, avoid unwanted encounters with the newly decomposing trash. You will need to change the worm harvest after each month.
What Nutrients Do Worms Give to Plants
Worms consume soil, animal feces, and organic substances such as leaves and decaying roots. Their digestive systems transform their food into humus, which is rich in important nutrients for plants.what does earthworms eatis the main point at all. They hold more of their castings than the soil around nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium. Worm excrement is a concentrated version of all the nutrients absorbed, which may be taken by the plants instantly.
Handling and Health
- Check the temperature in the container and the food and water supply to the worms. Make sure the linens stay damp.
- Chill bedding many times a year. In two to three months, worms will consume a huge number of castings and be eaten through their bedding.
- The worms become sick if the bin contains too many casts.
- You first need to remove the worms before changing the bedding. Dump the contents of the worm bin on a big plastic sheet and arrange it into little stacks.
- Brush out of each battery some of the dirt. The worms travel toward the center of each pile when they are exposed to the light so that you may collect them and store them in a clean container.
- Place on the surface the worms and fill the container with new bedding. The old dirt in the garden may be used as compost.
Facts
- They don’t have limbs, legs, or eyeballs.
- There are about 6,000 species.
- In South Africa, the largest earthworm ever found was 21 feet from the snout to the end of the tail called Microchaetus rappi.
- Baby worms don’t come into birth. They have smaller cocoons than a rice grain.
- If the skin of a worm dries, it’s going to die.
- Worms can breathe throughout their skin because they don’t possess lungs.
Conclusion
Worms are easy to grow and they take less care, what does earthworms eat ,making them affordable. You can only feed them your usual trash (Fruits/vegetables/leaves.). Purchasing from a store or making a new worm bin is your decision since worms won’t argue about that.
We hope you enjoyed and learned about what do worms eat and took benefit from this article.