LazyGirl,
Crest and San Diego County west of the Laguna Mountains averages somewhere between twenty and thirteen inches of rain a year, so technically little Crest here is not desert, speaking as a hard-core Desert Rat, who only wishes he could live in Wikieup, Arizona. Temperature-wise, we shoot way past a hundred degrees, Fahrenheit, and worms are supposed to do their best between 60 and 80 degrees. My original worm bins were inside an old barn, where the temp could easily be kept in comfortable range. They'd still be there if the roof over the bins had not collapsed and ruined them.
What I ended up doing was building a free-standing bin, about waist-high on legs, four foot-by eight, the outside walls one foot tall, with a canted roof of plywood, tar paper and sheet rock. Center-line, eight foot length, is roughly two feet tall. Both sides of the roof and the eight-foot long walls are hinged. Down the center is chicken wire that divides the bin into two sides. With the first bins, I found that four feet deep is just too hard to work a shovel into. Two feet is manageable, also working toward my plan to see if I can supply my chickens with a supplemental food source of protein, but that's way off.
I placed the bin under what I thought would be enough shade, but as it turned out, the sun still spends way too much time beating down on it. Best laid plans, right? Now I'm thinking I have to build a shade source over it. Unlike the desert, the air does cool off at night, generally, during the summer, so with enough insulation, the temps should be stable inside the bin itself. The design offers some insulation, but I'm going to have to do more. I'm even kicking around trying to build a straw bale structure around it, that could also serve as a root cellar, if I do it well. Heat, I think, contributed to my recent die-off, but I think the zinger was the horse manure I used. Despite some efforts to reduce the issue, I'm afraid the wormer the horse owners uses comes out intact enough in the manure to kill earthworms. Since then, I've made a point to compost the manure. Even if I don't have enough brown material and lose some nitrogen, its better than killing off the worms in the garden.
The reason I put the bin on legs is, I can paint the legs with something like used motor oil, and ants and bugs can't get in. I've also ended up running my chicken run's electric fence system around the legs to keep out mice, rats and squirrels.
I'll keep you up-dated, as this is a work in progress.
-
David Taylor
- Cool Member
- Posts: 88
- Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:21 pm
- Location: Crest California
If you happen to know anybody who is into fishing they would love to have to have as many worms as you want to get rid ofDavid Taylor wrote:Guys, this is the wrong critter to be courting for composting. RED WORMS. Vermiculture. I'm experimenting with it right now. I've got a 4 ft x 8 ft. worm bin. I had a die-off and have to buy some more of the wrigglers, but in the past I've found myself with hundreds of pounds of worm castings, that's the name for their poo, and worm castings is arguably the best organic fertilizer there is. I've ended up with hundreds of pounds of worms as well. What do you do with all those worms, especially when its a heck of a job to separate them from the bedding? I'm going to see if I can't let the chickens sort them out for me, and cut back on that feed expense.
-
rolivier79
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2009 1:52 am
- Location: Dallas, TX
One of the neat concepts about using the soldier grubs is that you can convert most of your food waste to grubs that you can make available to attract song birds back to your yard. I use a birdfeeder that I got from wild birds unlimited that doesn't allow for the feeding of pigeons... and now I support our local song bird population with 1 - 2 pounds of grubs a day... I guess it's similar to going to the park and feeding the ducks with your leftover bread.
-
sweet thunder
- Senior Member
- Posts: 210
- Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:43 pm
- Location: Eureka, CA
-
rolivier79
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2009 1:52 am
- Location: Dallas, TX
Since one adult female can easily lay 1000-2000 eggs, you don't have to purchase anything. I estimate that I have about 10,000 active in my grub composter right now and when they are ready to pupate they crawl out of the unit into a collection bucket...
At this point I collect up to a pound of fresh grubs a day. I don't have any chickens or aquaponic fish so I feed them to the local song bird population in a bird feeder. Sometimes I take a few extra's and throw them under a nearby bush so they can mature into adults and mate.
The typical adult fly is quite unique, because the adults themselves do not and can not feed on waste. All they do in the 8 days that they are allive is sit under the leaves of a tree waiting to lay their eggs in my BioPod. They are not associated with the spread of disease. All adults lack a digestive system and therefore the larval stage has a high accumulation of fats and proteins.
Like worms they thrive on Aerobic decomposition and they grind, aerate, and excrete digestive enzymes. In large enough numbers they will devour anything (80-90%) you throw in your composter in less then 24 hours. In reality they mostly eat the aerobic bacteria that live on fresh waste. They also digest a few easily accessible nutrients. But unlike earth worms their digestive track is limited and they are not the most suited for making the final compost product. As the Grubs are specialist in recycling nutrients quickly, Earth worms are still better at making enhancing soils and making compost. However, they do provide for a great backyard source of protein that can be harvested on a daily basis. They do not smell.
Most people try to eradicate them from their compost or worm bins... All I am doing is facilitating man to work in a more productive way with Nature versus the other way around. All of my grubs are clean and perfectly nutritious and 100% sustainable.
Some great independent sources are:
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnfkW4WgtG8[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_soldier_fly[/url]
[url]https://blacksoldierflyblog.com[/url]
At this point I collect up to a pound of fresh grubs a day. I don't have any chickens or aquaponic fish so I feed them to the local song bird population in a bird feeder. Sometimes I take a few extra's and throw them under a nearby bush so they can mature into adults and mate.
The typical adult fly is quite unique, because the adults themselves do not and can not feed on waste. All they do in the 8 days that they are allive is sit under the leaves of a tree waiting to lay their eggs in my BioPod. They are not associated with the spread of disease. All adults lack a digestive system and therefore the larval stage has a high accumulation of fats and proteins.
Like worms they thrive on Aerobic decomposition and they grind, aerate, and excrete digestive enzymes. In large enough numbers they will devour anything (80-90%) you throw in your composter in less then 24 hours. In reality they mostly eat the aerobic bacteria that live on fresh waste. They also digest a few easily accessible nutrients. But unlike earth worms their digestive track is limited and they are not the most suited for making the final compost product. As the Grubs are specialist in recycling nutrients quickly, Earth worms are still better at making enhancing soils and making compost. However, they do provide for a great backyard source of protein that can be harvested on a daily basis. They do not smell.
Most people try to eradicate them from their compost or worm bins... All I am doing is facilitating man to work in a more productive way with Nature versus the other way around. All of my grubs are clean and perfectly nutritious and 100% sustainable.
Some great independent sources are:
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnfkW4WgtG8[/url]
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_soldier_fly[/url]
[url]https://blacksoldierflyblog.com[/url]
-
rot
- Greener Thumb
- Posts: 728
- Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:15 am
- Location: Ventura County, CA, Sunset 23
...
In the rainy season I'll find the black soldier fly grubs marching across the deck radiating from the bin. We've had dry winters and more birds so I'm not seeing so many these days.
Never seem to be a problem around here. Not a lot of the flies and the compost gets digested.
Somebody up in Washington is experimenting with black soldier fly larvae to digest cow manure and then use the grubs to feed farm raised fish.
Now the maggot bucket seems a little bit much for me. That's where a bucket has some holes in the side not far above the bottom. The bucket is suspended from a tree with road kill or something in it. As the maggots multiply, they fall out of the holes and the chickens feast on them. I've also heard of hanging the bucket over a pond for fish.
I guess it all depends on how far you want to take things. All part of the cycle.
...
In the rainy season I'll find the black soldier fly grubs marching across the deck radiating from the bin. We've had dry winters and more birds so I'm not seeing so many these days.
Never seem to be a problem around here. Not a lot of the flies and the compost gets digested.
Somebody up in Washington is experimenting with black soldier fly larvae to digest cow manure and then use the grubs to feed farm raised fish.
Now the maggot bucket seems a little bit much for me. That's where a bucket has some holes in the side not far above the bottom. The bucket is suspended from a tree with road kill or something in it. As the maggots multiply, they fall out of the holes and the chickens feast on them. I've also heard of hanging the bucket over a pond for fish.
I guess it all depends on how far you want to take things. All part of the cycle.
...