I have been following worm forums for years. Several have come and gone. A few have had forums specifically for commercial growers. None of them have been very active. At one time the commercial forum at Worm Digest looked the most promising, but it is not very active any more.

http://www.wormdigest.org/component/option,com_joomlaboard/Itemid,50/func,showcat/catid,7/

This forum is the most active worm forum I have been able to find.

I'm an accountant and ran the numbers for a small worm busines. Don't quit your day job. If you have really deep pockets and want a big operation, don't quit your day job. It takes a few years for any business to become self supporting. In this business you have a product you can sell to other wormers and castings. The castings have a huge potential but there has been so little research done in this area it is hard sell.

"This forum is the most active worm forum I have been able to find."
Maybe because the other forums are so picturesque(sp.?) and colourful, people tend to shy away from checking it at their workplace. I am retired so I don't have that problem.

In the past the most active forum was wherever Kelly Slocum was posting. She does not appear to be posting anywhere now. She used to post quite a bit here. She moved on, but as far as I can tell, never got firmly established at another forum.

A lot of the composting forums have klunky interfaces or don't have many knowledgeable people at them. I can't find any of the old time experts anywhere anymore.

belindach, you're correct, making much of any profit is tough. I sold at a Farmers' Market last summer, and didn't come close to re-couping my initial investment (40 lbs of worms = $600, plus a few hundred dollars of other stuff). Now I'm taking it much smaller/slower.

Cheers, Jase
http://vermontworms.com/

Jase, have you checked out utube? There are a number of videos from commercial farms. No large profitable business is going to make it easy for competitors but you can read between the lines. Most of what I've read says to take it slow because it easy to buy 10,000 worth of worms and equipment and have your inventory die in a few hours.

Also, I don't think there is a fast easy set of rules for anyone. Depending on where you live determines the market. Like most businesses to be successful you will have to have a business plan and identify your customer and meet the needs of that customer. In other words, the larger the business the more manure you have to shovel.

"In other words, the larger the business the more manure you have to shovel."
Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth.

Check out:
http://www.redwormcomposting.com/
Bentley has an excellent reputation in the wormin' biz.
Good Luck

The downside to worms and related areas is that it's not like math . Reason I say that is that if a person in Maine gives me (in Arizona) the a couple of the dimensions of a triangle I can give them all the info they will need to find the rest . Not so with worms . There seem to be no gurus . There are no places to find rock solid bet your boots on this sources of info . There's a lot "well , for me here in XXX we can do this or that" and so on . I have searched and am down to just a few "almost" sure fire methods to use worms . I am now getting ready to use euros to live in the soil in which I garden so their poop will help the soil and as they produce more than I need then I will sell them as bait . The produce will benefit me as well as a few bucks from anglers .
It seems that raising worms will work but like the word says "it's WORK" . Start small and learn from your mistakes . A friend of mine had to get out of the biz because shipping costs ate him up . He was selling on E-bay and they demand overnight shipping on worms . I'm sure that if you ask enough people questions you will hear some stuff over and over . You can start with those answers and answer many of the others through trial and error . Keep your worms separate so one mistake does not kill them all . Experiment with small groups . This stifles growth at one end but in case of a catastrophy you are not starting over . It's a slow process but at the rate that worms reproduce you will eventually benefit from their sheer tanacity . I would think that 5 years is a reasonable time to give for this type of project . It's a long time , granted BUT I'm reminded of a girl I knew back east . I advised Nursing School . She said (and I paraphrase) "My God , I'm 40 years old . It will take 6 years since I work . I'll be 46 when I graduate."I replied "How old will you be in 6 years IF you don't do it ?" She is a retired RN and enjoying a GOOD retirement . Work it like a school project . Ask every question of every person . When I was younger I was a pilot . We had a little saying . "When I had 10 hours I didn't listen to anyone . When I had 100 hours I listened to SOME people . When I had 1000 hours I listened to EVERYONE." This is something that "might" support but will at least supplement you . The business will be YOU . It will succeed if you make it succeed and fail if you make it fail .

I bought my worms from a guy I located in my home town. When I asked him if I could buy 2 pounds of worms, he told me I could but he started his business on 1 pound of worms and a bucket. I went to his house where he runs his business out of his garage. He probably had 150 bins that were 2' by 3' and about 1' deep. He brushed off the top layer of castings of one of the bins and it was crawling with worms. He said each bin had probably 5 or 6 pounds of worms in them. It was truly amazing. I talked with him for about an hour and he just kept rattling on about all of these vermicomposting conventions that he and his son travel to in Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, etc. He kept citing all of these phd's and what they had to say about vermicompost and worm castings. He was full of knowledge and said the subject was really down to a science as far as feeding and nutrient content was concerned. They harvest there castings and sell them by the bag, they brew tea, and they also till the castings in with other compost and soil and sell it by the yard. He had a pretty good operation going and he said it all started with a pound of worms and a bucket.

Thanks for the info. I've been keeping worms since 2004, so I'm pretty comfortable with the general process at this point. I started doing it as a side business in the Spring of 2008, and definitely made a few mistakes. In the end, I probably lost a few hundred bucks, but nothing catastrophic.

My biggest mistake was starting out at a time when I was simply too busy to devote the necessary time. I began selling at a local Farmers Market, but the market was new and foot traffic was too low for such a niche product as worms. Probably 1 out of every 2 people at a Farmers Market will buy vegetables, but perhaps one in 50 or 100 will buy worms or worm castings. I had a lot of people stopping by and a lot of interest, but not a lot of sales.

Were I to do it again, I'd sell at a larger Farmers Market market, and also have more "props" to help sell the product. I did set up a 10 gallon glass aquarium as a worm bin, so that I could easily show how it worked. A series of plants in pots "with worm castings", and "without worm castings" showing their value as fertilizer would be helpful. I'd probably also sell complete worm bin setups -- worms, bedding, and some food already set up in a bin for folks to simply buy and add food scraps to.

For now, I'm back to primarily selling online. That works well, but is a very competitive marketplace. $30 for a pound of worms may seem like there's a ton of room for profit, but it's a lot of work.

At this point, I'm on worm forums here at gardenweb, wormdigest, davesgarden, and thegardenforums. Definitely don't see much talk about commercial vermiculture/vermicomposting. The growers/sellers who are on are mostly just trying to hawk their wares. It's too bad -- I'm sure in the pre-Internet days, folks were much more willing to share information. If you're mostly selling locally, someone across the country is no threat to your business.