I recently scored a worm farm and some compost bins and a tumbler.
I've been filling a compost bin with organic stuff for about a month and I can see earth worms feasting in the gunk at the bottom.
Supposedly red earth worms are the best for a worm farm. I'm not that keen on forking out $30 after bunnings tax for a small pack of live worms.
Would the ones from the compost bin be OK for a trial in the worm form given that they seem to like all the compost
Just make sure you are not adding anything toxic to worms (onions, garlic, citrus etc……look online for info).
Not sure about the red worms, but you need a good number (several hundred) to get started or it will take forever for them to break stuff down. Also, the larger earthworms also consume/process alot more than the smaller ones.
Have a look on gumtree or similar and see if there is anyone selling worms, might be cheaper than bunnings.
I had a worm farm until a small instance of genocide involving not enough shade and several 40+ degree days in a row :(
The Worm Affair worms that are sold at Bunnings are worthwhile. Although the box may seem small for $29.90 there are approx 500 worms in there which is a great starting number and you will end up with double that number after about 8 weeks. There is also heaps of helpful information on the Worm Affair website.
Try the local community garden. They may well have worm farms with lots of worms and be willing to give you some.
join your local freecycle group or facebook buy/swap/sell and ask there.
If they eat it then go ahead and use them.
The worst that can happen is you kill some worms