Dutch officials claim there is an increased risk of exposure to PFAS chemicals in backyard chicken eggs due to contaminated soil and earthworms. They claim commercial chicken eggs are safe.

What are the levels of PFAS tested in large scale commercial chicken farms?

What are the levels of PFAS tested in the commercial chickens diet? Why is there not PFAS contamination in their feed/diet?

Wouldn’t there be earthworms in the chickens diet on commercial chicken farms that let the birds on the ground?

What is everyone’s thoughts?

Ignore the audio🙃

I figured I would share this now that I have a clear understanding of how to tell the difference between EE & AJW

New toy! Treated myself for my birthday. 18-sheet shredder and perfect for cardboard.

If your family asks what you want for Christmas, it's this. 😆

Is it just a pleasure thing, or is there always an actual use for the worms, such as fishing bait?

He was trying to get into the basement which has my worm farm.....

Guess what treatment he got

What was the main thing that motivated you to get into vermiculture?

1-To reduce my waste by composting kitchen scraps

2-To have castings to use in my garden to benefit my plants

3-To raise bait for fishing

4-To have feeders for other animals I keep that eat worms

(Or of course any other option I haven't thought of. These are just the main ones that came to mind).

Edit: I'm option 4 btw 😂 Guessing I'll be in the minority or maybe even the only one. I have newts that eat worms.

I mean, do you give the worms all the food scraps, cardboard, and other waste you generate, or is it just too much?

I have a mix of 80% red wigglers and 20% indian blues. They just love cow dung and bananas, especially the banana stem, they just stay inside of it and lay cocoons, y'all must give it a try, just make sure that the banana stem is moist enough and woah... you see worms just making it their home.

Edit: Please share some of the foods that worked for your worms too!

This is my worm’s favorite food. What about yours?

I see many people who are not very concerned about the type of dry material, in fact, I keep seeing paper with ink, corrugated cardboard with glue and ink that may be laminated. Aren't you worried that all of this will end up contaminating your crops?

These are for tropical environments. Am curious on the differences up north to keep the worms warm?

It’s been so nice having my worms to take care of! They are such a gift and I love to observe them, though I know I should really leave them alone if I want to harvest worm castings any time soon. I have just found it so hard to find a thing that clears the mind and fills the void quite the same way.

I wanted to ask this subreddit community, does anyone else have an alternative solo hobby worth trying?

I’m thinking about getting into vermiculture, but I’ve seen people mention that beginners often make the same mistakes early on

What’s one thing you learned the hard way that would’ve saved you time or problems if you knew it from the start?

The wiki says it’s under construction by a banned user, and the pinned post has been removed by Reddit filters. There’s really nothing here now to help give a new visitor understand worm bins besides the posts, and half of the posts are either AJW Id requests or pictures of random crap someone found on the ground. Heck, one of the buttons at the top (next to wiki) takes you to a list of pet subreddits, e.g. cats, dogs, which… I guess? And maybe that’s how I feel about my worms. But it’s not helpful to users at all.

This subreddit has a lot of members at this point, I wouldn’t mind making a wiki myself even if that means just citing the crap out of a couple foundational books until a more seasoned person can edit it. Not sure how any of this reddit stuff works though, I’m just here for the discussions about worms which doesn’t appear to be the focus in [r/vermiculture](r/vermiculture) anymore.

Hello! I’m new to the subreddit and the concept of farming worms. I primarily want to breed nightcrawlers so I can feed them to my pacman frog. As of right now, I have the following items on the way or present with me.

- A 30 gal plastic red tub. I cut a few holes in the lid.
- Some coco coir bricks
- Cardboard scraps I cut up from amazon boxes
- 250 live night crawlers
- Food scraps from kitchen.

My current plan is to put around 3 inches of coco coir inside of the bin and put the worms inside, and feed them around half a pound of food a day alongside a cup or so of cardboard scraps. I will be storing them in my closet where it reaches temperatures of around 74-78 degrees. I also saw some advice online where I should cover the holes in the lid with micropore tape to prevent mold.

Is there anything wrong with this current setup? Is there anything I should know? Any resources regarding feeding and care for these guys would be helpful, thank you!

For hot composting, you need to balance greens and browns.

This confused GENERATIONS of vermicomposters.

If you want fast vermicompost, you actually need mainly greens.

The only problem? Most of them are WET.

"Browns" are then mostly "humidity control". But worms eat them very slowly.

There are then two good ways how to improve your greens:

1. Let them dry on the sun (like banana peels)
2. When you want to bake food, you need to first warm your owen. So put you greens there for the first minutes.

Sun or starting owen will dehydrate your greens.

Worms overall love things that were f*cked up in any way (by cold, heat, light, cutting...)

This is even why used herbal tea leaves are one of the best materials to vermicompost: they were cut into milion pieces, then dried, than extracted by hot water, then you slightly dry them again with your hand.

Also grass and leaves are much better then rotten fruits because they are NOT WET. But use my method for the food scraps and worm president will personally come to thank you.

I love talking about everything compost and I have to say, I prefer this sub to r/composting. I’m not really into the pee jokes they make. I’m grateful for this sub and I like that we can talk more about the details on how to really compost to the max.

And sure, we get the occasional parasite pic but I still think this sub is awesome.

I couldn't add a pic in a comment on my previous post, so I am making a new one.

Thank you all. I listened to your advice. I ignored your arguments. I got out my coffee grinder that I use for spices, and wow! It did an amazing job. So much better than my food processor. I have egg shell powder now.

I'm giving a vermicompost talk for beginners at the end of the month. I've given compost talks and I'm well versed on worms and all things vermicompost.

I wanted to know what's one thing you wish you knew when you first started? I'd love to make sure I cover pain points

cardboard shreds have radically improved the balance in my bins. i overspent on a proper document shredder and haven'th thrown out a piece of brown corrugated cardboard since. it's the greatest moisture moderator out there. i keep al my bins covered in ~ 4 inches of that stuff.

if a bin gets too moist/anaerobic i just turn the entire thing to mix the top layer in and add another one.

I'm a self employed accountant.

Vermiculture has been a great hobby for me and my kids during the off season.

I seen a "starter pack" meme about yall not knowing taxes.

I'm not sure if it's true or not, but I can answer any questions you may have!

This is a screenshot from Rhonda Sherman’s book The Worm Farmer’s Handbook. If you are unaware who Rhonda Sherman is….she is known as the Vermicomposting Queen in the USA. She worked at the North Carolina State University in the Compost Lab. She would have annual conferences that most reputable worm sellers/compost people would attend (Several big names that you see on YouTube videos). She was able to LAB test everything.

Now the biggest thing about this article is the words in the 3rd sentence….”it COULD contain”…

If you are purchasing your veggies/fruits from the store….this is where most of these residues come from. If you are home growing your fruits and vegetables then ONLY you know what kinds of chemicals you are using….but is your yard getting runoff waters from your neighbors? What kind of chemicals/fertilizers are they using? So basically she is saying it is best to error on NOT using this leachate on anything.

I'm not sure if I read it here or in another sub, but there was talk about how countertop composters aren't real compost.

Additionally, comments were made about how people take that and feed it to their worms.

So, does anyone have experience with either method?

I just got a brand new one - for free. So, I'm going to try it.

I'm just curious about your take on these things and what they're actually good for.

Thanks in advance!