How to raise earthworms in summer Earthworms are temperature-changing animals, and their body temperature changes with the change of external environment temperature. Therefore, earthworms are generally more dependent on the environment than warm-blooded animals. Environmental temperature not only affects the body temperature and activity of earthworms, but also affects their metabolism, growth, development and reproduction. Temperature also has a great influence on other living conditions, thus indirectly affecting earthworms. Therefore, temperature is one of the most important living conditions for earthworms.
Generally speaking, the active temperature of earthworms is 5? Within 30℃, 0? 5℃ into a dormant state, 0℃ below death. The optimum temperature is 20? At about 27℃, it can grow and reproduce well at this time. 28 ? At 30℃, it can maintain a certain growth; The growth stopped above 32℃; The activity below 10℃ is slow; The optimum incubation time of earthworm cocoon is 18 when it dies above 40℃? It can be seen that the highest lethal temperature of earthworm is lower than that of other invertebrates. The farm had better be indoors. In the southern region, it is ventilated and moisturized in summer, and it can be produced normally all year round as long as the windows are closed to keep warm in winter (the temperature here refers to the temperature of the substrate, because the temperature is different from that of the substrate, for example, when the temperature is 0℃, the temperature of the substrate is about12℃; When the temperature is 38℃, the base material temperature is only about 28℃, which is because manure contains extremely high moisture.
Earthworms are omnivores. They don't eat glass, plastic, metal and rubber, and the rest are humus, animal manure, soil bacteria and their decomposition products. Earthworms have a keen taste and like sweets and sour taste. Hate bitterness. I like hot and soft feed, and I am especially greedy for animal food. I eat as much as my weight every month.
How to collect
Earthworms live in moist, loose and organic-rich soil. Feed on organic matter in the soil during the day and climb out of the ground at night to feed on fallen leaves on the ground. Late spring and early summer are the best time to collect earthworms, when there are many earthworms and their activities are vigorous. In a day, the morning is the best, when the temperature is moderate, the light is weak, the temperature near the ground is high, and earthworms are mostly concentrated in the upper soil.
There are many ways to collect earthworms, and the following are commonly used.
In the excavation method, a place rich in humus, fertile soil, moist and loose, such as a vegetable garden, is selected and collected with a shovel.
Irrigation methods Earthworms have the habit of being afraid of water. When a field with a large number of earthworms is irrigated, earthworms will quickly get out of the soil.
Earthworms like to live in the dark. In late spring, as long as it rains at night, they can pick it up by the field with a flashlight at 3-4 am.
Earthworms like to eat fresh feed by trapping. We pile the fermented feed on the edge of the field with many earthworms, and after 3-5 days, we can open it with a shovel and collect it.
How to feed
Take a big container, put it in 3/4 of the rich soil, sprinkle water to wet the soil, put some vegetable leaves, put some earthworms in it, cover it with a wet cloth to keep the soil moist. So you can raise earthworms.
If you want to raise earthworms on a large scale, it is best to raise them outdoors, with simple equipment, convenient management and low cost. Earthworms are omnivorous animals, and all kinds of poultry manure, livestock manure, melon and fruit skins, vegetable leaves, leaves and non-toxic domestic garbage can be used as earthworm feed. It is best to ferment these feeds in advance, so that they have no peculiar smell, no sour taste, complete decomposition and brown appearance. The specific method of outdoor culture: choose a place with good drainage, warm ventilation, no pollution and no interference in Gao Shuang, and dig a shallow pit with a shovel, with a width of about 1 m and a depth of about 25 cm, with a suitable length and a flat bottom. After digging, build bricks at the bottom and wall of the pit to prevent earthworms from escaping. Then spread the feed about 5 cm, and then put the earthworm in it. Earthworms are not resistant to high temperature (above 35℃) or low temperature (below 0℃), so in summer, they should put up a shed above the breeding pit to shade themselves. In winter, a simple plastic shed should be built above the breeding pit to increase the pit temperature and protect earthworms from overwintering safely. In addition, we must do a good job of protection to prevent rats, frogs, snakes and so on.
observe carefully
Open the wet cloth on the indoor feeding container, and you will find that earthworms are drilling into the soil. Earthworms like to live in fertile soil. They can't eat any grain. After absorbing nutrients, they discharge the remaining soil particles from the anus at the tail end. This kind of soil particle is called earthworm dung.
Put the earthworm in the palm of your hand, and you will feel slippery mucus on its body surface.
In a big plate, put dry soil, dry sand, wet soil and wet sand in different areas, and then put a few earthworms. You will soon see that all the earthworms have climbed into the wet soil area and got into the wet soil.
Take a large glass tube, put black soil at the bottom of the tube, put sand on the second floor, and put black soil on it. Then, put a few earthworms, put a few vegetable leaves as earthworm feed, and sprinkle water to keep the soil moist. After 5-6 days, the soil was disturbed, the three-layer boundary gradually disappeared, and the soil was much looser than before. This shows that earthworms turn up and down in the soil, loosening the soil. No wonder farmers are called earthworms? Live harrow? .
Small experiment
Make a 45 with a pad? Put an earthworm in the middle of the slope to see which direction it will climb. The front end of the earthworm in the picture is upward, so it will climb up. Under normal circumstances, earthworms always rely on the contraction of body muscles and the cooperation of body surface bristles to advance.
Drop five different liquids (alcohol, vinegar, soapy water, salt water and sugar water) on the earthworm respectively. Because the first four solutions are very irritating to earthworms, they will jump around in pain, and only earthworms dripping with sugar water will not respond. However, it is not that earthworms like sugar water like children, but that sugar water is less irritating.
Earthworms are called annelids because their bodies are composed of many ring-shaped joints. The sharp end is the front end and the thick end is the back end. Cut off the last five links of the earthworm with a knife, and the cut-off part shall not exceed110 of the total length. Then put it on 2-3 sheets of wet toilet paper, buckle the glass, sprinkle water every few days and throw it into the leaves. A month later, the earthworm grew back to the lost back end, indicating that the earthworm has strong regeneration ability.
When cultivating earthworms in summer, you must remember to cool down and set up a shed for shading: through practical comparison, the shading effect of curtains made of wheat straw and rice straw on the shed is better than other methods (such as planting climbing plants and placing rape dustpans). The shed is built in the south and high in the north. The grass curtain is hoisted from the center of the shed roof, and the grass curtain, preferably water hyacinth, peanut and grass, is laid on the insect bed. According to the test, when the air temperature is 34℃, the temperature 6 cm below the surface of the earthworm bed covered with grass curtain is 30℃; Covering 40 cm ~ 50 cm thick water peanuts at 28℃; The temperature of the old mat without shed is 35℃. Therefore, after the shed is built, the earthworm bed is covered with a layer of grass curtain, especially with water hyacinth and water peanuts to cool down, which not only makes the earthworm grow fast, but also greatly increases the amount of eggs laid.
Cover the insect bed with grass: When the temperature becomes high, it is necessary to cover the insect bed with a layer of grass curtain, preferably water hyacinth, peanuts and grass.
Water to cool down: During high temperature, water must be done once every afternoon, so that earthworms can climb to the surface of the earthworm bed for food at night. If possible, water it twice in the morning and evening. Never use very hot rice field water or seriously polluted industrial wastewater. In the high temperature period, the above comprehensive cooling measures, combined with annual greening, can reduce the temperature of earthworm bed to below 30℃ and avoid the influence of earthworm dormancy on yield.
In a word, according to the local climate conditions, appropriate measures should be taken to increase or decrease the temperature of the earthworm bed, so that the annual temperature of the earthworm bed can be controlled in the most suitable range for earthworm growth and reproduction.
Harvesting method of cultivated earthworm
Earthworms are raised to a certain extent, and all of them are harvested to feed centipedes, except some of them are used for further reproduction. Different harvesting methods are also different. Generally, the following methods can be adopted.
1) lighting driving method
This method is suitable for feeding beds, boxes and ponds in harvesting rooms. Most of the earthworms in the feeding bed reach 400 ~ 600 mg, and the density per square meter reaches 1.5 ~ 20000, which does not affect the proliferation. This harvesting method can make use of the light-proof characteristics of earthworms, scrape materials layer by layer with a dung scraper under the illumination, and drive earthworms to drill to the lower layer of the feeding bed to gather together. Then put the earthworm on a big basket with a hole diameter of 5 mm, put the collection container under the basket, and under the light, the earthworm will automatically drill into the container under the sieve. Fecal particles and organic matter attached to the surface of earthworm remain on the sieve.
2) red light night catching method
This method is suitable for harvesting earthworms raised in the field. Using the habit of earthworm crawling to the surface for food and activities at night, earthworm was collected in the field at 3 ~ 4 am with a red or weak flashlight.
3) Trapping method
The method can be used for indoor feeding beds and also for harvesting earthworms raised in the field. Before harvesting, spread a layer of earthworm's favorite food, such as rotten fruit, on the surface of the old feed. After 2 ~ 3 days, earthworms gather in a large number of rotten fruits. At this time, quickly take out the swarms of earthworms and clean up the impurities with a sieve.
In the field, you can choose the feed that earthworms like to eat, pile it near the trough, and collect earthworms in the feed pile the next morning. You can also dig a small ditch with a depth of less than 1 0 cm along the feeding pond or the edge of the feeding pond. Bury two ceramic pots with a depth of about 30 cm at both ends of the ditch, or dig two soil pits. Some earthworms crawl along ditches at night and enter ceramic tanks or pits, where they can be collected before dawn.
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