Has anyone any experience of feeding earthworms oatmeal when carrying out ISO / OECD standardised tests? I am considering the use of oatmeal as an alternative to horse manure and am looking for a method.
Dear Karen Lupton, You have a very good idea of substituting away from horse manure in your standardized tests. I agree oatmeal would be more reproducible and less messy. For compost worms people utilize a home made worm chow to stimulate the activity of their worms. Maize wheat and oat meals are able to support compost worms well and many worms vary the ingredient or make mixtures. Maize wheat and oats are found to increase in cost according to that order. Hope some of this information can be useful for your objectives. Sincerely Paul Reed Hepperly
Paul is correct that oats might be a good food source for the worms. You might also want some basic 'bedding' material for the worms. For cost you might try oats for horses, the large bags might be less expensive. Also make sure you have the correct species of earthworm, some of the people selling them have different species, for example if they sell you 'redworms.'
Thank you,
Yes, getting the correct species of worm has proved a challenge but we are certain we have a pure culture of fetida now.
The worms are in OECD standard artificial soil.
Robert John Wolff would you just give the oats uncooked? Would you wet them before application? I’m struggling to find a reliable method.
You could try them different ways to see how your worms do. They would prefer them moist, especially if they are larger flakes. I would grind them into small pieces for easiest handling by the worms and just lightly sprayed to be moist.
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