Earthworm Cultivation (Lumbricus rubellus), Gives High Profit

Many people are afraid or amused by earthworms. However, some others think that this animal provides many benefits and benefits, in fact what is imagined is rupiah. They are earthworm breeders. Why is that so?

Not many people are interested in worm farming, even though the demand and price for these invertebrates is quite high, especially to be used as raw materials for cosmetics and medicines. In addition, many farmers use it for animal feed and medicine. This animal is considered to have a high protein content. The protein it contains is very good for fish farmers.

The nutritional content of worms includes protein 64-76, fat 7-10%, glutamic acid 8.98%, threonine 3.28%, lysine 5.16%, glycine 3.54, energy 900-4100 cal, as well as minerals, water, and the most complete amino acids. No wonder there are many benefits of earthworms. Not only for health but also for skin care.

Earthworm species Lumbricus rubellus is a type of worm that has the potential to be cultivated. This type of worm has a faster growth cycle than other types of worms. Not only that, this earthworm is also relatively easy to maintain and care for, because it can be developed in organic waste media.

Interested in worm farming? Quite easy and profitable, especially if you already have a marketing network.

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Worm Livestock Stages

The first thing you have to prepare is a worm farm. This worm cage must be free from possible pests or predators such as ants, lizards, chickens, or other animals that can prey on worms. Because there are many predators of the worm itself.

For the earthworm farm itself, we can do it in various places such as in cement tanks (jedingan system), wooden shelves, wooden boxes, etc.

Some places can be used as a means of worm cultivation. You can use the home garage to put boxes containing worm seeds, unused former fish ponds can also be used for worm houses or make a large pond specifically for worms. With the jedingan pond system, breeders can enter up to 5 kilograms of worm seeds.

With a shelving system, you can save space and maximize results, take advantage of existing used goods or use your yard for earthworm cultivation

Worm Livestock Media

Once a place is available for cultivation, the next step is to prepare the media for the worms. The medium for these worms to live, which will also at the same time also provide their food. There are many media where worms can be made, what is clear is that the cultivation media must be loose and contain lots of organic matter.

You can use mushroom logs or mushroom cultivation waste, organic soil (soil plus sawdust, or chopped banana stems), a mixture of compost with some organic material (agricultural waste, market waste).

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How to make? First enter the ingredients until it reaches a height of 15 cm. Also add enough water so that the earthworm's live medium is wet and loose. Stir all the ingredients until evenly mixed, so that the fermentation process occurs.

After four weeks, mix animal manure into it with a ratio of 70% live media and 30% animal manure. Lime can be added as much as 1?ri live media to get a neutral pH. The media is considered suitable if the pH reaches 6.0 – 7.2; humidity level 15 – 30 ?n temperature between 15 – 25ºc.

Then put earthworms in it. The worms that are inserted are as heavy as the live media that has been provided. If the media reaches 2 kg, then the worms that are inserted into it are also 2 kg. To avoid drying out, the surface of the media is covered with plastic, sack, or other opaque material. In order to live and develop properly, every day the worms must get the food supply they need.

Worm nursery

If you want to cultivate earthworms commercially, use existing seeds because they require a fairly large number. But, if you want to start on a small scale, you can use earthworm seeds that exist in nature. Usually a lot in rotting garbage piles or in animal waste dumps.

Maintenance of the seeds of prospective worm parent can be done in several ways:

• Keeping earthworms as much as possible or adapted to the place to be used. You can choose young or adult worms. If the cage is 0.3 m high, 2.5 m long, and < 1> . wide
• Maintenance starts with a small amount. If the number has increased, some of the worms can be moved to another maintenance tank.
• A combination of the two methods above
• Special care for cocoons until they are young, when they are adults they are transferred to another rearing tank.
• Special care for adult worms as seeds.

If the maintenance media is ready and the earthworm seeds are also available, then planting can be carried out as soon as possible. Don't put in all the available earthworm seeds, but try a little at a time.

If so, observe regularly every 3 hours, who knows if someone is hanging around the media or even leaving the media. If in about 12 hours nothing comes out of the container, it means that the media you made is suitable. On the other hand, if it doesn't match, the worms will roam everywhere.

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Worms are hemaphrodites, which means they have double sex organs. However, in matters of fertilization they cannot do it alone. From the marriage of a pair of worms will produce a cocoon containing eggs. The cocoon is oval in shape with the size of approximately 1/3 the size of the match head.

In a span of 14-21 days the cocoons will hatch, each cocoon will produce 2-20 tails. It is estimated that 100 worms can produce about 100,000 worms in 1 year.

Worm Feed

After we put the worms into the cultivation medium, don't forget to feed them. Worm feed can be in the form of household organic waste (rice leftovers, vegetable waste, etc.), home industry waste (fruit skins, restaurant kitchen scraps, etc.), livestock waste (goat, cow, and chicken manure) or fallen leaves made into compost.

The worm feed should be rotten or fermented, you can give it directly to the worms as well. The amount of feed given is equal to the weight of the worms that you enter, if the weight of the worms is 2 kg, then the feed given should also be 2 kg. Give feed in the form of porridge or powder. Make feed with a ratio of 1 feed: 1 water. The feed slurry is spread evenly over 1/3 of the surface of the earthworm live medium.

Worm Care

The feed that we gave earlier should be given every day for the amount of feed we give 2 kg, or we can also give 2 kg per week. Pay attention to whether the worms lack water or lack of feed, try to keep the culture media always moist and feed needs are always met.

Worms 

Many pests can prey on worms such as ants, beetles, birds, centipedes, centipedes, flies, mice, frogs, squirrels, chickens, ducks, snakes, geese, leeches, and fleas. For this reason, the hole for maintenance must always be closed. A good material to use as a cover is wire gauze. Because the wire gauze also ensures that the air change process continues to run properly. In addition, to prevent ant attacks, around the maintenance box is given sufficient water (mined).

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Worm Harvest Time

Harvesting is usually done in the 2.5 – 4th month. It is better not to harvest it as a whole. Usually you take only 25% to 75%. So that the regeneration process continues.

Harvesting can be started after we see the number of vermicompost (worm droppings) and cocoons  (a collection of worm eggs). Some adult worms should be left for use as seeds. How to harvest worms?

There are several ways you can do to harvest worms, one of which is by using a petromax, fluorescent lamps or light bulbs. The light produced by the lamp invites worms to gather at the top of the media. After that, the worms live taken and separated from the media. Another way is to invert the rearing box, and separate it from the worm's live medium.

After the worms were harvested, some of the adult worms and cocoons (worm eggs) were each  put into a new live medium separately. The eggs of these earthworms will soon hatch within 14-21 days. After that, maintenance is carried out like the beginning of cultivation. Thus the life process of worms will continue, worm cultivation can be carried out continuously at any time.