Farmer Rides Herd Over Lowdown, Legless Livestock

“Yuck” is what people say when Richard Morhar tells them what he does for a living. “Yuck” and “Ick” and “Ooh, gross.”

Morhar is a farmer with an unusual crop: worms.

Millions of squirming, wriggling, squishy, worms.

Morhar dumps 10 tons of horse manure in cement pens on the lawn of his Thousand Oaks home every month for the worms to eat. When it rains, his yard looks like something from a horror movie.

“It’s eerie. Millions of worms come up and crawl all over the place. You find globs of them on the side of the house,” Morhar said.

Worm farming is, to say the least, neither easy nor glamorous.

“I wonder sometimes why I’m doing it. There’s a lot of backbreaking, hard work involved,” said Morhar, 40, a lanky, bearded, divorced father of four.

But 11 years in the worm-farming business have made Morhar fond of his slender, legless herd. He considers them to be friends and cringes when he sells them to fishermen for use as bait, he said.

Fertilizer Byproduct

Morhar said he earns an average of $20,000 a year by selling to new-home owners, nurseries and landscapers worms and the fertile soil that the worms create by eating and digesting the horse manure. Worm manure--called castings--is one of the best fertilizers in the world, Morhar said.

Morhar said he is the only worm farmer in Ventura County and one of only a few in the Los Angeles area.

The 1986-87 Earthworm Buyer’s Guide, published in Eagle River, Wis., lists one worm farm in the San Fernando Valley, but its owner could not be reached. A friend of the owner said he had left the state.

The guide, which contains advertisements for everything from “worm booster, the natural mineral supplement worms crave,” to night crawlers with “more moves than a hula dancer,” lists 84 worm farmers nationwide, nine in California.

The exact number is impossible to determine, since worm farmers are under no obligation to register with city, state or federal authorities. But available statistics indicate that California leads the nation in worm husbandry, according to Ray Borton, senior agricultural economist with the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

Worm Census Reported

A 1982 U. S. Department of Commerce Census of Agriculture listed 43 worm farms in California, with reported annual sales of $1.6 million, followed closely by Texas, with 36 worm farmers who reported annual sales of $1.5 million. Nationwide, 344 worm farms reported income of $7.1 million in 1982.

Morhar specializes in red worms, lumbricus rubellus. Worm farmers prefer them because they are prolific breeders, wriggle energetically on a fishing hook and stay nicely put in their patch of manure most of the time--except when it rains. Loving moisture, they crawl out of the ground after a rainfall and wander around until Morhar chases them back underground by shining bright lights on their light-sensitive skins.

Also, red worms burrow only about a foot deep, making them easier to extract when needed. Earthworms and night crawlers require a worm farmer to dig much deeper for a harvest.

“Home of Happy Worms” proclaims a sign identifying the nearly two acres of land that is home to Morhar, his worms and an assortment of dogs, cats, roosters and chickens. The business is run by Morhar, his son, Tim, 17, and one full-time employee. Morhar’s costs--including labor and trucking--are about $1,500 a month, he said, and he has earned up to $5,000 in a good month.

Steps Described

The first step in Morhar’s operation is spreading the manure--gathered from Simi Valley horse ranches--around the cement-lined worm pens. Morhar then wets the manure with water or “worm tea,” a brew of ingredients that are a trade secret, Morhar said.

“The worms do the rest,” Morhar said. “You could leave them for weeks unattended and basically nothing would happen.”

It generally takes the worms 10 days to two weeks to turn a manure patch into rich soil, Morhar said. The worms live for up to seven years but younger worms are more productive. The older worms spend most of the time lying around in the shade while the younger ones spend most of the day eating and increasing their production of castings.

Morhar thrust a pitchfork into the dirt, turning up a clump of pinkish-maroon worms, and picked up a handful, stroking one as it wriggled in the sunlight.

“That little bubble, that’s an egg,” Morhar said, picking a pinhead-sized amber-colored orb from the dirt.

A single egg can produce from three to eight worms, Morhar said. Worms, which have both male and female sex organs, reach sexual maturity at about 3 months of age.

Egg Production Described

Robert F. Shields, publisher of the Earthworm Buyer’s Guide, said a mature worm can produce at least two egg capsules a month. Within a year, 1,000 breeder worms could produce 1.25 million worms, he said.

“The reality is the worms do multiply,” Morhar said. “The hard part is getting rid of them. If you hustle, you can make a good living. If you wait for customers to knock on your door, forget it.”

Morhar did not expect to be farming worms when he was graduated from California State University, Northridge in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He went to work for an accounting firm in North Hollywood, and still works part time as a certified public accountant, especially in the winter when the weather makes both the worms and the market for them less active.

In 1975, Morhar saw an advertisement for worm farming, then a hot investment fad. Morhar and a friend purchased two small boxes of worms and some equipment for $500, “just to see what would happen,” he said.

Promoters at the time were promising returns of up to 1,000%, saying there was a big demand for worms by organic gardeners, zoos, laboratories, schools, fishermen and fish breeders. At seminars in rented rooms, they sold “worm farm starter kits,” for several hundred dollars and expensive equipment such as electric worm heaters.

They promised to buy the worms back at a substantial profit. Frequently, they skipped town or simply resold the worms to another buyer in a pyramid-like scheme, publisher Shields said.

By 1978, the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission was warning the public not to be lured into worm-selling schemes, and several states were cracking down on those who made extravagant claims. That same year, the agricultural census found 1,197 worm farms in the country, more than three times as many as the census found four years later.

Crackdown Comes Late

But the crackdown was too late for Morhar and his partner, who found themselves working up to 16 hours a day to harvest 10 pounds of worms which sold for $2.50 a pound. Morhar’s friend dropped out but Morhar kept at it. “I’m just stubborn,” he explained.

Morhar gradually began to tailor his marketing toward organic gardeners. Now 99% of his business is selling soil, with or without worms. He ships worms and soil, packed in plastic foam containers, around the United States and to foreign countries. A pound of worms--1,000 to 1,600 of them--costs $12. Five gallons of worms, worm castings and composted manure costs $5. A gallon of worm castings alone sells for $3.50.

Some organic gardeners are so particular, he said, that they want to know what was eaten by the horse that produced the manure Morhar’s worms ate.

A few people want worms for other purposes: fertilizing marijuana patches, or even for eating.

Some buyers ask for a pound of clean worms to use in recipes for such things as worm cookies, cakes and omelets, Morhar said. Although it never caught on with the general public, a brief outbreak of worm recipe contests several years ago produced such suggested delicacies as chocolate-covered worms and worms in sour cream sauce served over chow mein noodles.

No, Morhar said, he has never eaten worms.