The great thing about rabbits and worms is their almost symbiotic relationship. Build earthworm pits beneath your rabbit cages and you'll never have to haul away bunny droppings again. To boot, any odor problem you might other wise have is eliminated, as the earthworms dispose of the rabbit manure in short order. The worms won't even require supplemental feeding if the manure supply is fairly constant. Just forget about the pits until you need some of the wigglers. Then, a couple of quick digs with a pitchfork should bring as many as you want to the surface. Don't use a spade or shovel, however: either implement will cut too many worms in half. A pitchfork or potato fork should be used to turn the critters up with minimum damage.
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THE PIT
A worm pit is most simply built as four walls of cement blocks or wooden planks. There's no need to add a real floor to the bed; the worms don't like to go deeper than eighteen inches or so. Moles, however, could be a problem. Fat juicy earthworms for breakfast, lunch and dinner are just what moles like best. To nip this problem in the bud, lay a "floor" of half-inch wire mesh in your pit before filling it. Planks laid on the bare ground as snugly as you can fit them will do as well, but they're a waste of lumber unless you have a lot of collapsed barns on your property.
In the more temperate climates, you can save a lot of digging by building your worm bed above-ground. Make the pit walls two cinderblocks high and three to four inches wider than your rabbit hutches (to catch any food falling out the front or back). The length of the pit could go on almost indefinitely, except that practical limitations militate against more than sixty or seventy feet. That's a lot of rabbits, not to mention worms . . . and the whole idea is to cut down on labor. So don't make the bed any longer than your row of rabbit hutches.
The same pit arrangement can be used in colder areas if the pit is partially buried. Make it three cinderblocks deep, two below ground and one above. Worms breed best in temperatures above 40°F, so your pit should be buried far enough to insure against soil temperatures colder than this during the spring and fall.
In the wintertime there won't be many fishermen around, and rabbit odors will be minimal anyway. Your main interest then will be simply keeping enough breeding stock alive until warmer weather. By knowing the depth to which the soil freezes in your area—check with your neighbor or county agent—you can determine how deep to dig the worm beds. You'll want them eight to ten inches deeper than the freezing line.
FILLING THE PIT
Put four to six inches of limestone over the screening in the bottom of your pit. This will assure adequate drainage and neutralize the excessive acidity which sometimes forms in worm beds. Gravel would do for the drainage . . . but will not compensate for the acidity, which could cut your wiggler population.
