Tips on Protecting Your Worm Farm from Predators
This maybe annoying to accept, when you’re a worm farm keeper, but there are certain animals you may need to shield your worms from. You built your worm farm essentially to rake in some profits. So simply sitting by doing nothing, letting those animals eat away your profit, just won’t do. You want to keep a sure and steady level of produce (worms) to sell to people and establishments needing those worms.
These animals, some of which maybe kept on the same farm as your worms, maybe affecting your worm production in ways you hardly notice or would like to control. Various birds love to eat worms, so do foxes, snakes, toads, hedgehogs, slugs, leaches, beetles, and many parasites. So that’s the first worry when protecting your worms.
Another problem to be aware of concerns what you feed your worms. Particularly, I am talking about any manure you get from livestock farms. You use those manure to feed your worms. The problem lies in the fact that those livestock often ingest some form of medication, which may negatively affect your worms. Those medications may not always be cleanly digested by livestock, and so the residue builds up in the manure, which then goes to your worms.
Another complications with manure feeds include cluster flies and mites which prey on your worms. So it is important to be in the know about which livestock farms you can trust when getting manure as worm feed.
Related to this issue is when children have access to your worm farms. Not only may their inquisitive hands mishandle the worms, these children may also be affected by the left-over medication in the manure you feed your worms with. If you find that concerning, put up some large signs to keep children away from your worm farm.
Here is a tip about worm bins. You need good drainage, so that the water gets replaced regularly. Stale water tends to become contaminated over time, essentially harming your worms. You’d also need to be careful about drainage material you use. Some worm farmers use shredded cardboard, but some of these materials may have been contaminated by pesticides, which will in turn come into contact with your worms.
Another cost-affecting factor is which other other animals consume some of the different feeds you give to your worms. Worms tend to eat a lot, and if their food supply allotted to them gets consumed by some other creature, then the worms may not be eating as much as they should, or as you expect them. They’d suffer and might leave their designated worm beds, looking for food elsewhere. Even if the animals is not after the worms themselves, the effect is the same: you may suffer a reduction in your worm production. One specific problem here is the presence of raccoons on your farm, because these critters tend to find their way into hidden containers and can open up latches.
For those who have birds on the same farm where you have your worms, there’s does not need to be a problem, so long as you can find ways to keep the birds uninterested in your worms. Be sure to feed these birds in areas away from your worms, for example, to prevent them from being curious and in the end finding your worms and eating them.
The last kind of predators to be aware of neither consumes worm feeds nor lives on your farm. If your worm farm is located in a densely populated area, thieves and trespassers or even nosy neighbor can be a problem. So you will have to be sure your doors are not that easy to lock-pick, and that your fences discourage passers-by from simply jumping over them so they could snatch some wriggleys from your worm farm.
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