"bigboard" wrote in message
...
Franz Heymann wrote:


"Gary" wrote in message

And doing other things to promote faster consumption...like putting
soil
where they eat...worms have gizzards and need soil to digest their
food.

I doubt that. It is certainly not mentioned in any of the essays on
worm composting that I have read.

Franz



While they don't strictly speaking have gizzards, they do need some sort
of
gritty substance to help break up the food they ingest. I use calcified
seaweed.

Read this then

"In most of the species, the oesophagus is enlarged into a crop in front of
the gizzard. This latter organ is lined with a smooth thick chitinous
membrane, and is surrounded by weak longitudinal, but powerful transverse
muscles. Perrier saw these muscles in energetic action; and, as he remarks,
the trituration of the food must be chiefly effected by this organ, for
worms possess no jaws or teeth of any kind. Grains of sand and small stones,
from the 1/20 to a little more than the 1/10 inch in diameter, may generally
be found in their gizzards and intestines. As it is certain that worms
swallow many little stones, independently of those swallowed while
excavating their burrows, it is probable that they serve, like mill-stones,
to triturate their food. The gizzard opens into the intestine, which runs in
a straight course to the vent at the posterior end of the body."

THE FORMATION OF VEGETABLE MOULD
THROUGH THE ACTION OF WORMS
WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THEIR HABITS.
by Charles Darwin


[FIRST EDITION, October 10th, 1881.]

CHAPTER I--HABITS OF WORMS.
http://www.webmesh.co.uk/darwinworms1.htm