I'm a newby, but my understanding is that you might feed 1/2 # to a pound of worms under the best conditions.

You can keep a bin indoors! If you plan to keep it outdoors down there in desert country- then you may have issues next year at this time and lose worms.

1 pound of worms will not eat 1 pound of food a day. One pound might eat about 3 pounds a week, depending on what the feed is.
Redworms will double in biomass, under the best conditions, every 3 or so months.

Don't worry about getting too many worms. There are always people willing to give them a home. You might consider getting your own worms that way. I think they are VERY expensive to buy and it is not difficult to find people on several of the forums who do keep worms and have an abundance from time to time. That is now I got my worms three years ago. I got about 1/4 lb from 2 different people. (On the Minnesota Forum and the Daylily Forum). Check with people before buying them.

And then there are always those friends who fish . . . I will admit to giving some worms to friends who go fishing. But they understand that no worm is to be left behind - any not used are to be returned to me and put back in the bin. I have received some very nice Walleye and Sunfish that way. Carmellia

I have a fish tank. My plan is to use excess (indoor worms) as fishie food this winter. Hope to have an outdoor bin that will survive the winter as well.

I wasn't worried about getting to many worms. At the present time I have no place to put them. Adopted my brothers two kids so we're a little crowded at the present and they definitely couldn't be outside here due to the heat. My real question is how much compost do you end up with. I do regular composting and I know that a whole lot shrinks down to very little. So basically what I'm asking is for a rough estimate if you started with 1 lb of worms and fed them right, how much compost would you end up with in 6 months? Just curious. Thanks.

Pam

Factors to consider, they're best at 77 degrees. Mine happen to be in my basement where it's around 67 so they don't work as fast. I saw on here they like powdered egg shells for the calcium to multiply, and lacking calcium inhibits their reproduction. Moisture levels are also important for them as well. You can't have a starting population too small else, they may not find each other very often.

I think 1 lb of worms will give you little if any after 6 months. I found the first 6 months I added my worms to be more like an adjustment period, I didn't get much product until after. I started with 1 lb of worms in a bin putting 7 lbs of scraps in each week because, 1 lb of worms eats 1 lb of scraps right? In a couple of months the bin was almost all uneaten food. I stopped feeding them for 4 months, and periodically check in to see if the moisture levels were okay and I started to see the babies, and lots of them. Over time, whenever I lifted a spot of food it was loaded with the babies. I didn't see many of the parents spending too much time near the food, nor being particularly fat. The original worms just seemed not to be happy in their new location. Their babies, boy those little guys were estatic. As those babies grew they were verocious eaters and breeders, and after 6-12 months my worm bins got off the ground and are now I have two bins each giving me around 200 lbs of castings every 6 months or so and I just started a third.

That was my experience, I'm not sure of others.

Egg shells don't have anything to do with breeding or cocoons. Egg shells raise the ph of the bin and nothing more. You can use other things too but egg shells are good because they are safe and don't alter the ph too much.

Marshall

Thank You Piedmont, You answered my question. I was basically curious if it was all worth it. If I ever get a place to put some worm bins I will definitely give it a try. I live in Mesa, AZ and it get 118 degrees in the shade here so they definitely couldn't be outside and at the moment I don't have any place inside.

Thanks Again,
Happy Gardening,
Pam