For Wellington man John Eyles, he errs on the side of fascination.

Mr Eyles has spent a vast majority of time during the past 10 years learning all he can about the squirmy creatures and putting that knowledge to work creating his own worm farm which he has now turned into a business.

He currently supplies compost worms to Bunnings and Mitre 10 stores across the region as well as bait worms to service stations and bait shops.

Breeding worms initially started as a means for the avid fisherman to have an ongoing supply of bait, but he said it turned into something more when he realised he could make a “quid out of it”.

“When I first started I was sending them to places like Bourke and Nyngan, but I couldn’t keep up with supply,” he said.

“I’m starting to build up again now … I’ve expanded in the past year and am about to expand some more for bait worms.”

While people may think having a worm farm is as easy as putting a few vegetable scraps into the beds every now and then, Mr Eyles said there was much more to it.

He currently breeds three different varieties of the wriggly creatures – African Nightcrawlers, Indian Blue and Tiger – and has four sheds with worm beds in them which are almost at capacity.

“It’s a lot of work, very labour intensive,” he said.

“Each bed needs to be checked every day.

“You have to make sure they have good tucker and that all the beds are at the right temperature.

“The hardest part is making them breed, especially the nightcrawlers.”

At different stages of the growth cycle the worms are also picked out of their beds by hand to be put into other beds.

In terms of food, Mr Eyles said the worms would eat a trailer load of horse manure each week.

“They won’t breed in straight horse manure but once they are ready to be sold they go into beds of straight horse manure, I also feed them some grain as well.”

Despite all of the work that goes into breeding the worms, Mr Eyles said he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s the challenge you get out of it,” he said.

“It keeps you on your toes”

“It’s the challenge of keeping them alive and then getting them to breed.

“But it’s not a job like mowing a lawn where you can see a result at the end of each day.

“You can work all day long and at the end it still looks the same as when you started.”

Mr Eyles also sells liquid worm castings for garden fertliser.