Vermiculture and Alpacas

Why Vermiculture on an Alpaca Farm?

Cultivating earthworms on pacapoo is one of the most direct ways to make raising alpacas more sustainable.  

We harvest that black gold from the other end of the alpaca, carefully blend it with fine wood shavings, straw, urine and a little lime to create a new product we call pacapoo.   It's not just manure; it's high quality compost in a raw form.  Pacapoo creates new soil and is one of the best soil whole food nutrient sources available.

We take that pacapoo, lay it down in beds and cover it to keep the layers cool in the summer heat.   Deep down in the pacapoo we seed healthy earthworms, whose job is to eat pacapoo.  That includes all the little parasite eggs and larvae that may reside in there, so the earthworms are now our main line of defense against both internal parasites and summer flies.  And they produce a valuable commercial crop for our farm ~ what a deal!

There's an exciting new book out on the Soil Food Web, called "Teaming with Microbes".  For more information on the uses of natural life in the soil, visit the website http://teamingwithmicrobes.com/

Please contact us if you'd like to learn more about how to convert your waste alpaca manures to a valuable product, or if you'd like to purchase earthworms in wholesale or retail volume.