Talk:Frequently Asked Questions

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How many pounds of worms do i have now? - Taking a Worm Inventory

A fairly easy way to figure out how many pounds of worms you have is to do a Worm Inventory.

First figure out the volume of the bedding in your bin. length × width × height

Figuring it out in cubic inches first works best. Then convert the volume into cubic feet. There is 1728 cubic inches in a cubic foot.

Then convert the volume into gallons. There is roughly 7.5 US gallons in a cubic foot.

Then multiply by 2 to get the number of half gallons of bedding there is in your bin.

Now you are ready to take your samples.

Take samples from all areas of the bin until you have a full half gallon of bedding.

The reason samples are taken from all over the bin is because everything averages out. If you only took samples off the top or in spots where there is concentrations of worms the figures would be way off.

Mentally divide the din into a grid and take a hand full from each block taking one off the top, middle and bottom. Continuing around the bin until the full half gallon sample it taken.

It is also a good idea to take samples when there is no food in the bin so the worms will be evenly distributed throughout the bin.

After you have a full half gallon on bedding separate out the worms and weigh them. If you have no scale measure in a cup. A cup of worms is about 8 ounces. Then multiply the weight of the worm sample by the number of half gallons of bedding you came up with earlier

That should give you a rough estimate of the size of your worm herd.