I have a question for all you worm raisers. I'm thinking about building a worm pit under my chicken roost. I plan on screening it in so the chickens won't eat the worms. I thought about digging the pit out, and put in about 4"-6" of creek gravel in the bottom. Then layer it with plastic screen, the type you use for screen doors/windows. Next layer it with leaves, peat moss, hay or whatever I can find for bedding. Then shovel the chicken manure back on top of it plus whatever the chickens add a night. Does this sound like a good plan or something that might spell disaster?

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), July 10, 2001

Answers

I was just thinking about doing something like this under my rabbits, so I can't wait to see what responses you get!

-- Elizabeth in E TX (kimprice@peoplescom.net), July 11, 2001.

That type of worm bin is best suited to rabbit hutches. Chicken manure being so high in residual protein and amonia content needs to be anarobically composted before having worms introduced to it. the heat of the anarobic decomposition of chicken and "green" cow manures is sufficient to bake your worms. Rabbit pellets have an anarobic potential low enough to be introduced directly to bins. I am not positive, but I think goat pellets also can be direct introduced to bins.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), July 11, 2001.

If you can locate a copy of Salatin's Pastured Poultry Profits, he describes a 3 way system where his rabbit cages are about eye level with worm bins underneath some and chickens on the floor. He wets down the bedding near some of the bins to encourage the worms to crawl into it, providing the chickens with protein but not eliminating the population. He has rabbit, chickens, eggs, worms and castings to sell from the same space.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), July 11, 2001.

Hey Jay, instead of putting back all the chicken manure that I previously shoveled out and just let the chickens add to the bedding at night when they are on the roost, would this still be too much ammonia/acidity,,etc.?

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), July 11, 2001.

Russell- You can adjust the ph of your worm bed by sprinkling wood ashes over the surface. If you use a closed bin you could use eggshells instead, although you'd need a bunch of them. Technically, I think that you might get away with your plan IF you make sure to add plenty of carbonaceous material (old stable bedding; wood chips; shredded paper, etc) to the manure and keep it well aerated, but you would want to monitor the bedding temperature and make sure it does not heat up too much. It's hard to say for sure, since you did not mention how large the pit area is or how many birds you plan to keep. From a practical standpoint though, it might drive your chickens crazy trying to get the worms.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), July 11, 2001.

Elizabeth, the roost area is about 6'long and about 3' wide. I have 16 brown leghorns that come in at night to roost. Come about September I will be adding about 18 more to that number. These are young pullets that I have in a truck pen now. I figured my worm bin would match the size of the roost. Do you think I should build a bigger roost/bin?

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), July 11, 2001.

You should figure on allowing 10"-12" of roosting space per bird, so it sounds like you might need to increase the roosting area- hard to tell since I am not sure what the configuration of your roosts is to be. Also, I just read your original post again and realized that you said you were going to use window screen. You might want to consider using hardware cloth in addition to or instead of window screen. My birds would shred the window screen pretty quickly. Here's another thought, and maybe Jay has better advice for you- I have never raised worms in a pit, but I'm not sure I would bother with the gravel unless you have really poor drainage. I find that the biggest problem I have had with raising worms in homemade bins is keeping enough moisture in the bedding. I guess first I should ask if your roost is indoors or out? Around here many rabbit breeders keep worm bins under their hutches and rabbit urine adds a lot more moisture than chicken manure does.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), July 12, 2001.