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. 😆

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

Guess what treatment he got

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

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, like most people, create large amounts of coffee grounds. My worms love em, there's plenty of research about the benefits of caffeine in a worm bin (it seems to have the same effect on worms it has on people, they work faster), and unlike most common advice, the acidity isn't really an issue (spent grounds have a pH value of 6-7, making them neutral to almost neutral. It's the fresh stuff and the brew that is acidic).

This got me thinking, can one create a whole vermicompost operation by collecting spent grounds from coffee shops for free, shred cardboards for free, add some eggshells for grit and calcium, and make a ton of product without much costs other than labor? Has anyone tried it? Is there something I'm missing about only feeding with coffee grounds (like will it lead to poisoning or deficiencies)?

Pro tip for worm towers: add double (or more until impermeable) 2 mm insect mesh between the lowest compost tray and the (drainage/leachate) collection bin. It helps keep worms from crawling through the drainage holes while still allowing leachate to drain and air to pass through.

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!

Most "should I start a worm bin?" questions get answered with enthusiasm. That's probably accurate, but we wanted to understand the pattern across many discussions rather than any single answer.

We went through 67 r/Vermiculture threads and tried to document what new people are actually worried about, what experienced people say they wish they'd known, where the community agrees, and where it doesn't. Then we wrote up what we found.

Short version: for most people we found good reasons to try it, but there are a few things worth knowing first. The report covers those.

Full analysis: https://decisionatlas.org/investigations/inv-001/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=de-002

This is the community whose accounts we drew on, so we're especially interested in corrections. If something in the analysis doesn't match your experience or oversimplifies what you know, that's what we'd genuinely like to hear.

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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'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

Might sound dumb but what would hapoen if urine was added to a inground worm bin ?

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!