The Rural Voice, 1991-11, Page 28WORM YOUR WAY INTO BUSINESS
CASH FROM CRAWLERS IS ONE WAY TO KEEP THE FARM IN TOUGH TIMES.
AND THIS LIVESTOCK OPERATION DOESNT NEEDA HUGE CAPITAL OUTLAY
story and photos
by June Flath
It took only a $10,000 bank loan to
establish Christian Peipp in farming.
He spent $6,500 on a training course,
and buying equipment and livestock.
For another $2,500 he purchased a van
trailer to house the entire operation.
You see, Peipp's farm is different.
He's started in the worm business.
He runs Early Bird Ecology and
Bait Farms Ltd. near Smithville
Ontario, where along with offering the
training courses, he raises his own
worms. Peipp sells the worms for
bait, and the worm castings, or drop-
pings, as organic fertilizer.
There is also a growing interest in
the use of dehydrated worms in animal
feed and as a solution to hunger in the
third world.
His livestock are all African Night -
crawlers, known for being fast
growing, early maturing worms that
will breed in captivity in any season.
"They are horizontal diggers,"
explains Peipp, "not vertical. Dew
worms go down below the frost line.
African Nightcrawlers would not sur-
vive the winter here, as they would
only go five to six inches below the
surface."
Bob Vriesma, a landscaper from
Dresden, Ontario, has 1,800 breeder
worms. He has been raising bait
worms for 3-1/2 years, and began his
operation in order to have a winter
income. He spends 25 to 30 hours a
week on the worms during the winter.
African Nightcrawlers can survive
in a range of 55 to 90 degrees F. says
Bob, "but at the lower temperatures
they go dormant, and at the other end,
they eat fast to produce energy to keep
cool." They breed and grow best at a
controlled 68 degrees F.
"The worms are 100 per cent
efficient," says Peipp, "for every 100
pounds of feed the worms eat, they
produce 100 pounds of castings."
Christian Peipp and his "crawler" barn. Hanging from the ceiling are a dozen 4 -litre
pails, each holding 50 breeder worms.
African Nightcrawlers are fed a
"mixture of peat and newspaper loam
and seven mixed grains," says Peipps.
Early Bird sells the feed compon-
ents, but the farmers are under no
obligation to buy. Bob Vriesma has
his own newspaper mulcher and buys
his peat loam privately, however he
buys the grain mix from Early Bird.
He only uses 480 kilos/year. "It
wouldn't be worth the expense to have
a mill mix it for me," he says.
Early Bird sells the grain mix for
$15.60 for a 25 kilo bag, mulches
newspaper for $9.75 per feed bag
sized amount, while peat loam is
priced at $35 a yard.
Peipp gets his newspaper, peat
loam, and grain mix from the comp-
any for the price he sells the castings
back to the company.
Early Bird Farms will hold a year
round buy back contract with their
growers. They pay three cents per
pound for baby castings, five cents per
pound for adult worm castings, and
$40 for 1,000 worms.
Breeder worms are kept in four
litre pails. "Each worm lays two to
three eggs," says Peipp, "and each egg
hatches out two to three worms."
Every two weeks, eggs, worms,
and castings are separated by use of a
three tiered screened segregator. The
breeder worms are put back into pails
with enough feed to last them another
two weeks.
Eggs go into four litre pails and are
placed in an 80 degree F. incubator for
two weeks. At the end of that two
week period, the newly hatched
worms are transferred into 12 litre
pails. Each four litre pail of eggs has
now become a 12 litre pail of worms.
Feed is added and temperature is con-
trolled at 68 degrees F.
Two weeks later, those 12 litre
pails are separated into two 12 litre
pails. And two weeks after that, they
are split again.
At the next work session, 14 days
later, those worms and their castings
are separated, and the worms are
counted. There will be approximately
600 to 800 worms per 12 litre pail.
From then until shipment, the
worms live in one of 250, 12 litre
pails, and are fed every fourteen days.
Peipp spends an average of two •
hours a day with his "livestock." He
24 THE RURAL VOICE