Worm Farming for Profit: A Home Business for Kids or Adults

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PHOTO: FPG/JERI GLEITER
Worms are excellent bait just about anytime. With a little care and work, you can make $800 in a good summer!

Mother Nature sure was thinking about the fisherman when she dreamed up the earthworm. She also might have been thinking about the perfect summer home business for kids. What kid hasn’t happily dug into the dirt in hopes of collecting a pail full of worms to watch? Well, this summer it doesn’t have to be just child’s play: Since an earthworm is probably the most reliable bait in the world and fishing is one of the most popular pastimes in the country, there can be money in them there dirt piles, if you decide to try worm farming for profit.

Finding and Collecting Worms

Known as angleworms, dewworms, gardenworms, nightcrawlers, rainworms, ground, and red worms, earthworms are especially plentiful in old lawns and wild grasslands. But worm burrows are often well-hidden, and the entrances are sometimes plugged with leaves, seeds, twigs, or pebbles. To get them on a moment’s notice, the soil may have to be turned over with a fork or shovel. Still, during humid weather, worms do come out of their tunnels to feed, mate, or migrate. Worms are known to travel considerable distances in order to migrate, and they will always emerge during rainstorms at night, and occasionally during the day, too.

Seldom, if ever, will they be on the surface when winds are blowing strongly. But in clear weather, after dark, earthworms can easily be gathered on the surface of almost any piece of fertile soil. The best method: Search under large trees or bushes with the aid of a dim light, such as a flashlight fitted with a red lens or covered with a piece of very light cloth or paper. On a selected night, worms can readily be brought to the surface by thoroughly sprinkling the ground around their burrows before sundown. Collecting worms is a cinch then. However, should the temperature fall below 40 degrees, forget it–you’ll have to dig them out the following day.

Starting a Worm Farm

  • Published on Jun 1, 1992
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