The worms have arrived.

                                                                                                                                                                                         




There was great excitement today, our worms plus bins arrived. We weren't quite sure what to expect as we unopened the huge box, inside were the three separate bins which we had to assemble, plus a kg of live worms to go in each bin, a couple had managed to escape out of their bag, but I don't think the delivery man is in for any unexpected live stock in his van, as the boxes were so well packed.
                                                                                     

In anticipation of their arrival I had been doing a lot of reading up on worms, mainly on breeding them as food for the hens, I discovered a fantastic web site, The ModernHomestead.us   Written by Harvey Ussery.
 His site is full of useful information including producing worms  and sprouting grains as feed for hens. He is also the author of a poultry book, 'The Small Scale Poultry Flock' with foreword by my Guru, Joel Salalin.
Although we have kept poultry for very many years  I am always open to new ideas, especially if they don't involve reliance on ready made feed  and the use of chemicals, this includes anything from pharmaceutical companies. I have ordered his book as I'm sure I will learn from it.

So the worms are now installed  in their bins. I was surprised by some facts on worms, once they have settled in , 1kg of worms will consume .5 kg of waste food per day, after three months they should have doubled their numbers. This will of course mean more bins for them, these we will make ourselves, Simon is working on the plans as I type.






Our second batch of ducks are now in the freezer, their cleaned weight averaged out to 4lb per bird. It just leaves ten ducklings and two La Bresse to be slaughter and that is the  freezer stocked for the next year, when the cycle of food production will continue.
Once the last birds have gone and we only have our breeding stock it will leave us free for other things, craft work, days out, or maybe just hibernation for the winter.