Some Things That Will Kill Your Earthworm Farms
When running earthworm farms, the most crucial thing is the health and safety of your worms. Without your worms, your compost bin means nada. What you put in your wormery should be a healthy meal for your worms that won’t damage their digestive system and will ensure longer lives and more bountiful reproduction. You need to make sure what you are putting in your earthworm farms is not toxic and will not hurt your worms.
A few kitchen waste products you should stay away from are meats, dairy produts, and oils. While these waste products can be digested by your wormery worms, they are not particularly good for the digestive tracts of your earthworms. It is best to not add these items to your earthworm farms.
Something to note about citrus fruits. Citrus fruits are ok to add to your earthworm farms sparingly. Like other fruits and vegetables, they are highly nutritious and add a lot to your compost, however if you add too much and the citrus level of your earthworm farms passes a high level, your wormery worms will stop ingesting and break down the waste. If you observe this occuring, refrain from adding more citrus to the vermicompost bin for a few weeks.
There is a debate on pet feces. Some believe it is ok to put this in your earthworm farms, but I am reserved against doing so. Here are a few reasons why. Many canines will at some point take medication for worms. While you are obviously not killing earthworms infecting your pet, the same chemicals that kill the parasitic worms can kill your earthworms. This medicine will come out in the dog’s feces. If your dog has not been de-wormed in some time, it might be alright to add its feces. If you have a cat and use a litter box, I strongly urge against adding its feces. Many cat litters use inorganic chemicals to de-oderize the feces. These chemicals can harm and even kill your worms.
Grass clippings and fallen leaves are some of the best and simplest things you can add to your earthworm farms. You should be careful about this though. If you use a weed killer on your lawn, or pesticides on your garden, the chemicals remain inside the leaves and will end up being eaten by your worms. Much like the cat litter mentioned before, these chemicals can harm or possibly kill your worms. Just stay away from any plants or lawns that have been chemically treated.
