How to Raise Worms for Bait & Profit

Prepare a container for your worm stock. Any clean and chemical-free container can serve as a worm home. A plastic storage container makes a great worm bin, but needs a bit of preparation before turning your worms loose. Begin by drilling small holes along the bottom of the container to drain excess water from the bin and prevent your worms from drowning. Drill as many as 4 golf-ball-sized holes and cover them with wire mesh to prevent worms from escaping. Drill similar holes in the lid for fresh air and cover these holes with wire mesh as well.

Fill the containers with a mixture of equal parts peat moss and cow manure. Add a generous amount of water to the mixture and wait a few days while the peat moss soaks up the water. To determine if the mixture is ready, pick up a handful of the material and squeeze. If a lot of water comes out, add more peat moss and manure, if no water comes out, add more water; you want only a couple water droplets to come out when you squeeze.

Place your bulk stock of worms into the container, on top of the mixture. Apply a layer of cardboard over the "soil" to block sunlight, one of the worm's biggest enemies, from penetrating the soil. The worms will immediately bury into the mixture seeking to hide and find food.

Place organic scraps into the container for your worms to eat. Organic scraps that worms love include watermelon rinds, coffee grinds, rotting lettuce and various other cooked or raw vegetables and plants. While the manure inside the container helps support the worms when other food is unavailable, keeping a steady amount of food on the surface of the container, under the cardboard, encourages fat, healthy worms. The worms feed on rotting materials and may leave fresh organic matter to lie until it begins to rot.

Split the worms into more containers when the worms begin to breed and populate the container. Adult worms notice when the container becomes over-crowded and stop mating to accommodate room for the over-population of worms. To split the container, empty the container out onto a plastic sheet and separate the small and adult worms by hand. Have new containers of peat moss and manure ready to separate the worms into.

Reserve the mixture left behind after picking out the adult and infant worms. Run this mixture through a sift to pick out worm eggs and organic leftovers. Reserve the remaining mixture to place in 5- or single-gallon buckets and sell as worm casting fertilizer.

Collect adult worms to sell for bait or compost bins by placing a watermelon rind in the worm home and waiting a few hours for the worms to find the watermelon. Open the container and lift the watermelon. You will notice a large group of worms underneath that you should grab with your hand and place in a foam cup with a lid, to sell for composting or bait.