Making worm grit for your worm tubs

When you raise worms in captivity, there are a few things that they actually do need that they can get in the wild. They do need a bit of grit to help out their digestive system. Now I'm sure that in the wild, they aren't getting finely ground up egg shells, unless they are hanging out in somebodies garden or compost pile....and even then its highly doubtful that somebody is going to turn their egg shells into grit for the garden/compost pile.

Since we have chickens, we have eggs (obviously). I generally throw the shells in the compost bucket.  But when my egg shell grit is getting low, I will throw the shells into a bowl until I have a big enough batch to bake, and crush, and then run through the blender to turn into almost a fine sand.
You do need to bake them for your worms, because of the whole salmonella issue, and for some reason (that I'm not sure of) you do need to bake them to kill whatever germs there are, that are on the shells.

Basically you throw them in the oven at 250 for 20 min. When you get them out of the oven, they will practically explode in your hand. That's on of my favorite parts. So what I generally do is put them in a big bowl after I bake them, and then beat them down with a wooden spoon, and then I throw them in the blender until they look like bits of sand.

Other than helping them digest, it also helps to keep the alkaline down in the tubs if you give them coffee, and stuff along those lines.

Now, if you feel so inclined to keep a constant baking of the egg shells going, you can also give a sprinkle of this in your chicken feed to help make sure your chickens are getting plenty of calcium. So, this is multi use, which is awesome....and if you like the texture of it, you could also keep up with it, and sprinkle it directly on your garden to help with the dirt. Over time if you have a clay garden, this will help to bring your soil around. And yes, I do plan on using this as an additive, on a regular basis, to my garden. We have a nice sized garden, in a great spot. The only problem is, the dirt isn't the best. But now that we have the bunnies, and a good size compost pile, our garden should really start getting awesome here in the next few years.

Alright, enough of that...let me talk about my last post a bit. Carmel did come to visit us, and she is indeed a most beautiful pup. Her current owners are great people, and were off on her age by a couple of years, but that's ok. They are going to come again for another visit, but I honestly fear that it may not work out. I'm not so certain that Carmel likes us. As we know, that's a most important thing when you are bringing a pup home to the family circle. I want it to work out so badly, but I cannot push something onto this sweet beautiful dog, who is past middle age. If things don't work out with us, I certainly hope that her family reconsiders rehoming her, and keeps her with them. She truly is set in her ways at this point in her life, and I believe that she is very happy with her family. She is a very intelligent dog. I've decided that if things do not work out with her, that perhaps we should just be happy with just Sam and Jasper, and be a happy home with just the two of them. They seem quite content with the way things are. I think they could be happy with another sweet girl, but that sweet girl would have to love them back as well.

Alright, that's it for the rest of this day, I think its time for me to settle in for the evening with a bit of crochet. I'm toying around with the idea of a new crochet pattern. Something bright and springy...keep your eyes peeled!!! If you have any ideas for a pattern that you might like for me to write, don't hesitate to let me know!!!! I'm up for any challenge!!!!