Can You Raise Earthworms in a Foam Box? Farming Methods and Precautions
Speaking of earthworms, many people, like this editor, are actually afraid of them. Although earthworms do not bite people like snakes do, their appearance still gives this editor goosebumps just thinking about them. Yet it must be admitted that earthworms truly have great uses in our lives, so many breeders have now turned their attention to the path of earthworm farming.
Can You Raise Earthworms in a Foam Box
Yes, as long as you keep them in a foam box and then, once a week, regularly bury a little fruit peel, rotten vegetable leaves and the like shallowly in the box. But the design must be scientific. Place the earthworm box in a corner where no sunlight can reach it, and punch holes in the bottom of the earthworm box. When the box below is full, put the food into the box above, and the earthworms will crawl up by themselves. Punch plenty of holes in the lid of the foam box, and cover it with an insect-proof net made from a pair of pantyhose, which both prevents insects from invading and stops the earthworms from escaping. Between the lid and the culture substrate, add another layer made from cardboard as a moisture-retaining layer, and note that gaps should be left on all four sides to allow ventilation. When the temperature is high, prepare two bottles of mineral water and put them in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. After freezing for a day, place one bottle in the earthworm box, and alternate the two bottles of mineral water every other day.
The Latest Scientific Earthworm Farming Techniques
1. Humidity
Earthworms have no special respiratory organs; they breathe through their skin, so an earthworm's body must remain moist. If an earthworm is placed in a dry environment, its skin will after a period of time be unable to stay moist, and therefore it cannot breathe normally. The earthworm will immediately go into spasms and soon die.
2. Temperature
Earthworms are poikilothermic animals, and their body temperature changes with the temperature of the external environment. Therefore, earthworms generally depend on their environment more markedly than homoiothermic animals do. Environmental temperature not only affects an earthworm's body temperature and activity, but also affects its metabolism, growth and development, and reproduction, and temperature also has a considerable effect on other living conditions, thereby indirectly affecting earthworms. Therefore, temperature is one of the most important living conditions for earthworms.
3. Aeration
Earthworms breathe the oxygen that diffuses from the atmosphere into the soil. The better the soil is aerated, the more vigorous their metabolism. Not only do they produce more egg cocoons, but their maturation period is also shortened, so box-type farming gives the highest yield, because a box can be aerated on all eight sides. Earthworms cannot live in an environment with high levels of carbon dioxide, methane, fluorine or hydrogen sulfide. If the habitat contains excessive hydrogen sulfide or methane, the earthworms will escape or even die in large numbers.
4. Food
Food is a long-term, crucial ecological factor affecting earthworms. Insufficient food will make competition among earthworms fierce, especially when the farming density is relatively high. Intensified competition for food among individuals often leads to reduced fertility, the spread of pests and diseases, increased mortality, and the escape of some earthworms. The influence of food on earthworms is shown not only in the quantity of food but also in its quality.
5. Acidity and alkalinity (pH value)
Earthworms are very sensitive to acids and alkalis, because chemoreceptors capable of sensing acids, alkalis and the like are distributed over the various parts of an earthworm's body surface. Earthworms cannot survive in strongly acidic or strongly alkaline environments, but they have a certain ability to adapt to weakly acidic and strongly alkaline environmental conditions. Daping No. 2 earthworms grow better within a pH range of 6—8, and produce the most earthworm cocoons within a pH range of 7—7.5.
6. Density
So-called density refers to the number of earthworms per unit area or volume. The size of the farming density will to a great extent affect changes in the environment, thereby greatly affecting the overall earthworm yield and cost. If the density is low, although competition for survival among individuals is not fierce and each earthworm multiplies many times over, the multiplication factor of the earthworms over the whole area is small, the yield is low, and more manpower and material resources are consumed. If the stocking density is too high, then because of insufficient food, oxygen and so on and excessive accumulation of metabolic products, environmental pollution and crowded living space result, which intensifies competition for survival among the earthworms, causing them to gain weight slowly, reducing their fertility, spreading pests and diseases, raising the mortality rate, and causing the survivors to escape, and so on. Therefore, mastering the optimal farming density is a major key to creating the best benefits.
7. Salinity
Someone carried out an experiment on earthworms' tolerance of salinity, placing Pheretima williamsi earthworms respectively in 0.02%, 0.1%, 0.4%, 0.8% and 1.6% table salt solutions and in 0.01%, 0.02%, 0.04% and 0.08% copper sulfate solutions, and observing the death times of the earthworms. The death times of the earthworms in the solutions with 0.8% and 1.6% table salt were 145 minutes and 52 minutes respectively, while the earthworms in the remaining table salt solutions had not died after 24 hours, showing a certain tolerance.
8. Light
Although earthworms have no eyes, many light cells are distributed over their entire body surface, and they are more numerous at the front end of the body (the prostomium) and at the rear end. Blue light stimulates earthworms, red light does not, and ultraviolet light is harmful. Therefore, the farming site should avoid direct sunlight, and it is best to raise them indoors and light a red fluorescent lamp.
The Farming Benefits of Earthworms
Thanks to advances in science and technology, people have used advanced science and technology to conduct in-depth research on the medicinal components and pharmacological effects of earthworms, proving that earthworms have multiple pharmacological functions, and quite a few clinical experiments have been done, which have already proven to be very effective. According to analysis, the earthworm body contains various medicinal components such as lumbrokinase (earthworm extract), earthworm antipyretic, earthworm toxin, xanthine, antihistamine, choline, cholesterol, nucleic acid derivatives and B vitamins.
Earthworm extract mainly contains tyrosine, which can dilate the bronchi, has an antihistamine effect, can slowly lower blood pressure, and promotes the contractile ability of uterine smooth muscle. B vitamins have an antipyretic function. At present, lumbrokinase can already be scientifically extracted from the earthworm body to treat cerebrovascular infarction and other conditions, and lumbrokinase has already been launched on the market in oral or injection form. It has already been proven that earthworms can be fully used for clinical treatment.
They have effects such as reducing fever, calming, relieving asthma, lowering blood pressure and resisting convulsions, and can treat edema, retention of urine, chronic nephritis, high fever with restlessness, convulsions, inward attack of rash toxin, amenorrhea, hemiplegia, numbness, coughing with rapid breathing, pneumonia, tuberculosis, bronchiectasis, acute and chronic infantile convulsions, mania, epilepsy, pain, hypertension, facial paralysis, rheumatism, arthralgia, cystitis, bladder stones, jaundice and many other diseases.
This Chinese medicinal herb, earthworm, can be seen in both folk remedies and proven prescriptions. The infusion of earthworms can also treat erysipelas, gill adenitis, ulcers and the like. In addition, the infusion of earthworms can also be used in beauty and health care products. For example, adding earthworm infusion to creams, frosts and masks can eliminate freckles and prevent solar radiation, making it a very good health care and skin care product.
The Farming Prospects of Earthworms
In the early 1980s, a small amount of earthworm farming was carried out in some places in our country, but in the end all the farmers were deceived. This is how it happened: some lawbreakers vigorously promoted that, in order to fulfill contracts, they would supply a large number of seedlings and buy back all the products. The product buyers said the products were used to make “earthworm wine” and used as Chinese medicine, so they also “in a convincing manner” bought back at high prices in front of the public, causing many people to buy their seedlings in large quantities (up to 1200 yuan per 10,000 worms). By the time everyone had raised earthworms and went to sell them to the buyers, there was no trace of them. So even now some people turn pale at the mention of earthworm farming.
Earthworms can indeed be used to make medicine. At present, the international market price is 80,000 to 150,000 yuan per ton of dried earthworms, or even higher; in addition to being able to process animal manure, farming earthworms can also process garbage, purify the environment, and accumulate fertilizer. Earthworms can turn garbage into fertilizer. Countries such as Japan, the United States, Canada, Myanmar, India, the Philippines, Australia and West Germany all use earthworms to process garbage, purify the environment, eliminate public hazards and make organic fertilizer. In some countries, earthworm farming has developed to the stage of factory farming and commercial production.
As people's level of knowledge continues to increase, understanding of earthworms is also growing. Earthworms have a special function: they can turn a lot of garbage into fertilizer, so many countries abroad use earthworms to process garbage, and they also have a certain medicinal value, with earthworm components contained in many medicines.