Homestead Ventures · Project Concept · Costa Rica
The best fertilizer on this mountain will come out of a Quarter Horse. Not a bag from a hardware store. Real worm castings, pulled from Chirripó horse manure by red wigglers — the material serious growers call black gold.
Nutrient-dense, biologically alive, and finished by the worms themselves. Nothing synthetic. Nothing imported. The top of the soil food chain, in a bag.
The Raise
Homestead Ventures is actively raising capital to launch the Chirripó worm-casting line as a real, profitable product — not a compost hobby and not a soil-building preview. Founding partners come in now, at seed terms, before the first bag of black gold leaves the mountain.
Where we start
The first bin sits on already-secured land in the Chirripó zone. Starter worms, shade, moisture. A pre-compost bay so raw manure doesn’t cook the worms. First black gold stays on our own trees and beds.
Where we grow
Screened castings, labeled, sold as Chirripó horse-manure vermicompost. No mystery fill. As the horse band grows, so do the beds. This is where the loop compounds.
Who we need
A limited founding cohort. Founders come in first, at seed terms, and are named on the beds. Standard partners come in as the round fills. Equity, not donation.
Interested? Reach out and we’ll walk you through the numbers, the timeline, and the specific terms for the slot you want.
Inquire About the Round →Why Black Gold, Why Here
Castings are worm feces plus finished bedding — structure, microbial life, and slow nutrients that a compost heap alone doesn’t deliver. Serious growers call it black gold for a reason: it works on transplants, fruit-tree basins, and market beds like nothing else on the shelf.
Horse manure is the right feedstock. Red wigglers are manure worms — they live in decaying organics, not deep soil. Horse dung is already in their preferred range: moist, fibrous, not as “hot” chemically as chicken manure. In side-by-side trials, horse dung gives as high or higher finished-casting recovery than cow dung. And it’s the waste we already have to move.
The Chirripó climate keeps worms working most of the year, as long as the beds stay moist and shaded. Same humid logic as the BSF bins — different animal, different output. Horses make the feedstock. Worms make the SKU. Gardens prove it.
The species
Eisenia fetida / andrei
Red wigglers. The standard vermicomposting worm. Manure worms — they live in decaying organics, not deep soil.
The feedstock
Horse manure
Moist, fibrous, not as hot as chicken manure. Already in the worms’ preferred range.
Recovery
~68% vs ~67%
Horse dung vs cow dung in vermicompost trials. Horse holds its own or edges ahead — and it’s the waste we already have.
Feed rate
~3.5 lb/lb worms/wk
1 lb of Eisenia (~1,000 worms) eats about 3.5 lb of material per week. Extension-work planning number.
Doubling time
~4 months
In good conditions, red wigglers roughly double every four months. Ideal-condition math, not a contract.
Volume reduction
Real
Finished castings are a fraction of the raw pile. What goes in wet and bulky comes out dry, dark, and dense.
Harvest cadence
2+ / year
Plan for two or more harvests per year. Steady output, not a single seasonal drop.
The rule
Start small.
Do not drown a starter bed in a week of stall waste. Scale worms to manure, not manure to worms.
Vermicompost is not the same as a hot aerobic pile. Honesty is the plan: we pre-compost and manage heat where needed so black gold ships clean.
The Worm We Want
Red wigglers. The standard vermicomposting worm on every continent that runs a working bed. Surface feeder, fast processor, tough enough for a working farm.
Eisenia fetida and its close cousin Eisenia andrei are the two species that do vermicompost work at scale. They’re surface feeders — they live in the top few inches of decomposing organic matter, not deep soil. Exactly what we want when the feedstock is horse manure being fed onto the top of a bed.
On the extension-work planning numbers: 1 lb of Eisenia — roughly 1,000 worms — eats about 3.5 lb of material per week. One mature horse produces roughly 350 lb of manure per week. That works out to something like 100 lb of worms per horse on manure-only — more if you mix in a lot of bedding. You do not buy that on day one. You start small and let the herd double every few months if the beds stay right.
Worms roughly double every four months in good conditions. That’s the ideal-conditions number, not a contract. We’re not scaling worms ahead of the manure — that’s a fast way to end up with a starving bed. Grow the beds as the horse band grows.
The Working Rules
Every vermicompost operation that fails, fails on one of five things. We’re not going to pretend the first bed runs itself. Here’s what actually matters.
Fresh manure heats up — and heat cooks worms. Age it or pre-compost 2–4 weeks (or run a short hot pile) until it stops steaming and starts smelling earthy, not ammonia. Straight from the stall to the worms is how you kill a bed in a week.
Shavings and straw are fine in the mix, but a 50/50 manure + bedding pile needs more worms and more time to work through. Pure manure is easier to start on — then add bedding as the worm population grows.
Worms want a wrung-out sponge, not a swamp. Shade, cover, and drain — the wet-season setup is not optional up here. A saturated bed goes anaerobic and dies. This is the specific reason Phase 1 runs on our own homestead first.
Ivermectin is the usual worry — a lot of it is already deactivated in the horse, and sunlight plus a short compost step knock it down further. But moxidectin lasts much longer. If a horse was just treated, hold that manure 4–12 weeks before it hits the worms — longer if you don’t know the product. On a new band with unknown history, we don’t guess.
Vermicompost is not the same as a 131 °F hot aerobic pile. It doesn’t guarantee a thermal kill of horse strongyles or weed seeds. If we’re shipping black gold that goes into someone’s garden soil, we pre-compost or rest the manure first. Not because it’s marketing — because that’s how you sell to a farmer twice.
The Chirripó Flow
Pre-compost bay → shaded worm windrow / bins → screen → bag
How the Three Ventures Lock
Horses, worms, and BSF bins on the same Chirripó land. Every product feeds the next.
The Costa Rica homestead is not three separate hobbies. The three ventures interlock at the material level — not marketing, not story, but flows. Horses make the manure. Worms turn it into black gold. BSF frass rolls into the same beds as an optional secondary feedstock. Nothing stays waste.
Black gold is the hinge. It’s the finished product every other venture on this land ends up feeding into — and the only one that goes straight into someone else’s garden as-is. Horses make the feedstock. Worms make the SKU. Gardens prove it.
The Math · Beds Match the Band
Every planning number here starts from one horse. As the Chirripó band grows, the beds grow. Never the other way around.
Feed rate
~3.5 lb / lb worms / week
Extension-work planning number. 1 lb of Eisenia (~1,000 worms) processes ~3.5 lb of material per week under good conditions.
Worm-to-horse ratio
~100 lb worms
Full-speed, roughly what it takes to keep up with the manure of one mature horse (350 lb/week) on manure-only. More if bedding is mixed in.
Recovery
~68%
Reported horse-manure vermicompost recovery. Roughly on par with cow manure (~67%) — horse holds its own on real numbers.
The Business Plan
Not a moonshot. A staged build where the horses are already on the mountain and the buyers are already down the mountain.
The First Windrow
Beds sized to the first 2–4 horses, not a fantasy herd. Starter Eisenia, shade, moisture, and a pre-compost bay so raw manure doesn’t cook the worms.
First black gold goes on our own fruit trees and beds — so we see the product before we sell it. No bagging yet.
The Bag
Screened castings, bagged and labeled as Chirripó horse-manure vermicompost. No mystery fill. Sold locally around Pérez Zeledón and San Isidro.
Tea as a later add-on, not the first product. Founding partners named on the first commercial run.
Soil House
Beds matched to the full Chirripó horse band. Black gold sits next to BSF larvae and eggs at the farm gate. Same inquiry, three CR products.
Optional later: worm tea, blended soil mixes, wholesale to nurseries — only when the core product is running clean.
Claims · Say Only What Holds
Castings improve soil and plant performance. That’s the claim. We’re not going to sell them as a miracle in a bag.
Vermicompost improves soil structure, microbial life, and plant performance. Published research and grower experience both back that up. It works especially well as a transplant amendment, in fruit-tree basins, and in market-garden beds.
What we do not say: that black gold cures blight, kills every pathogen, or replaces a complete fertility program on every crop. It’s an amendment — a very good one — not a total fertilizer replacement in every soil.
Vermicompost is also not the same as a hot aerobic pile. It doesn’t reach the sustained 131 °F thermal kill for horse strongyles or weed seeds. That’s why we pre-compost or rest the manure — not because it’s optional, but because that’s how you ship a clean bag.
Founding Partners
Same frame as the Sicily ventures and the other Costa Rica pages. Early supporters are not buying a plaque. They are in before black gold is on any store shelf.
Fund starter worms, roof, and first bins.
Your capital covers the starter Eisenia, the pre-compost bay, and the shelter over the first beds. First black gold harvest ships to your named garden or fruit trees.
Fund bagging and local sales.
Your name goes on the bagging and local-distribution launch. Every commercial run that goes out gets your name on the founding partner list, and a share of the casting revenue.
Horses + worms + BSF as one stack.
Beds proven, bags moving. Your capital sits across the horse program, the worm-casting program, and the BSF bins — the full Chirripó loop where nothing gets thrown away twice.
If Founding Partner Is Not the Fit
Not everyone we talk to is positioned for a founding-partner slot — and that’s fine. If you want to see this black gold come to life, there’s a way in at every level.
$50
A simple way to be part of it — and to hear from Chirripó every month.
$150
The tier where you actually hold the product — and put it in your own soil.
$500
The full backing tier — and an open door to the mountain.
Every supporter, at every level, helps turn manure into black gold. A small bag still counts as a launch.
The Costa Rica Stack
This is one of three linked ventures on the same Chirripó land. Manure feeds worms. Waste feeds BSF. Frass feeds worms too. One inquiry form. Three real products.
Venture · Working stock
American Quarter Horses from a Pérez Zeledón program, raised and bred on the mountain. Working stock, ranch value, and the manure that feeds the black-gold beds.
See the Project →Venture · Waste to protein
Black Soldier Fly larvae raised on farm waste. Protein for hens and trout. Frass rolls into the same worm beds as an optional secondary feedstock.
See the Project →The other island · Sicily
Fair Questions
That’s what serious growers already call top-grade worm castings — the material is dark, dense, biologically alive, and works on plants like nothing else on the shelf. We didn’t invent the term. We’re just producing the real thing on real horse manure, on our own mountain.
Roughly 350 lb per week for a mature ~1,000 lb horse. That is the industry-average planning figure the beds are sized against.
Ivermectin is the usual worry — a lot of it is already deactivated in the horse, and sunlight plus a short compost step knock it down further. But moxidectin lasts longer. If a horse was just treated, we hold that manure 4–12 weeks before it hits the worms — longer if the product is unknown. On a new band, we don’t guess.
Vermicompost is not the same as a hot aerobic pile. It doesn’t reach the sustained 131 °F thermal kill for horse strongyles or weed seeds. That’s why we pre-compost or rest the manure where it matters. Pathogen and weed-seed management is real work, not a marketing bullet.
Chirripó rain will over-wet a bed if you let it. Worms want a wrung-out sponge, not a swamp. Roof, drainage, and bedding choice are the difference between a bed that thrives and one that goes anaerobic. That’s Phase 1’s job: learn the wet season on this land before we scale.
Not on every crop, not honestly. Vermicompost is a phenomenal soil amendment — for transplants, fruit-tree basins, and market gardens especially — and it reduces synthetic inputs. But it’s not a complete fertility program on every crop in every soil. Anyone selling it that way is overselling.
Chirripó horse-manure vermicompost. Origin: Chirripó zone, Costa Rica. Species: Eisenia fetida / andrei. Feedstock: horse manure, pre-composted. Harvest date. Costa Rica’s fertilizer-labeling requirements will be met before commercial sale — treated as a to-do, not a formality already handled.
Horses on the mountain. Beds under the shade. That is the product.
This page is a project concept and capital raise. Feed rates, recovery percentages, doubling times, and harvest cadence are working targets and planning figures, not commitments. Doubling time is an ideal-condition number — wet-season moisture, shade, pre-composting, and dewormer holds are all real variables. Vermicompost is a soil amendment, not a plant disease cure or a total fertilizer replacement. Costa Rica fertilizer-labeling and organic-amendment sale requirements will be handled separately before commercial distribution.