Regarding the wormman story, everyone should see things logically. There is always a second opinion required.
I am not too sure about what the wormman involved, but logically, if there is something that is easy to breed, high production, fast to see results... in very short time you can expect to see that there will be same thing happening to the graph - from over demand to over supply.
With all the get-rich-quicker who promised/dreamed about sky high in one step around, you can pretty much kiss all the downstream industries goodbye because all focused on quick cash.
Vermiculture is not some get-rich-quick tools to start with, it has some environmental protection, sustainability and nutrient recycling benefit but people are miss using this excuse to make profit, therefore kill the business real quick.
QUOTE(lokideangelus @ Jan 25 2010, 03:14 PM)
i heard from a friend of mine it is a lucrative business that can be considered. Is it difficult to breed and rare them ?is there market for them in malaysia ?
do you require a large space to breed and cultivate them ?
is there any specific species that is only marketable ?
regards
There is no free lunch in this world, everything has its difficulty.
Has your friend started any leech farm? If so he might know more then me. If he is a hear-say, well, here is my limited understanding of this subject.
Of course you dont need any scale to "start" any leech farm, but were you able to gain any considerable output, that is another question.
Here are the economics I know about.
Factories who might want to buy your leeches: RM60/kg
Medical entities who might want to buy your leeches: 100s /kg
How many kg of leeches you can expect to rear on one particular fibre tank? Of course you need to have some kind of scale to be profitable at RM60 per kg of leeches rite? So now you thinks that the hospitals are willing to pay you RM500 per kg of leeches, remember, if each leeches is at 50g you gonna have 20 huge leeches in 1kg, which is a lot, how many tonnes you expect our local hospitals would consume in one day? Remember, if it is too expensive, and its easy to raise, and the hospital needs lots of them, they can always set up a leech department, since it was mentioned that it can start small above, and hospitals have all the mad labs and equipments.
Then, you would need live keli fish to feed your adult leeches, for their thirst of blood, and for the baby leeches, it is said to prey on small invertebrates like snails. In conclusion, you will always required live bait to feed them. Fresh feed is certainly cost more then processed food, and more hassle too.
(added: I read years ago that commercial leech farm pump fresh cow blood into cow intestine to feed lots of leeches all at once, so you have to think where you can get fresh cow blood and their intestines)
Last but not least, let's say you are able to raise and keep tonnes of them at your backyard, another very pressing issue is how to prevent them from escaping or swarm on you while you are sleeping... (at least earthworms are vegetarian)
Furthermore, another main issue is, as you have asked, what species? Upon each leech training, you will most likely required to purchase breeders from your trainer, at a much higher price then RM60. Hence this is where their income from.
But as I mentioned earlier, if your friend was already leech farming, he might be better informed them I am, hence you should refer to him.
This post has been edited by rexis: Feb 22 2010, 04:50 PM 
Jan 28 2010, 04:38 PM
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we might have business to talk about 
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