the 90 days is a generalism, it actually depends on a lot of variables (food, moisture, temp, etc.). is your first tray full? if so have you stopped feeding in that tray? they may not move up if they have all they need in the first tray. is the tray above touching the tray below? they can scale up the sides of a bin but they don't jump.

The bin isn't all that full either. But I know they are eating.
Do you keep all your empty bins on top or just one? My luck I got worms on weightwatchers or something.

Do you have a homemade bin or one of the commercially sold stackable bins? Most of the retail bins have a "stop" of some sort that keeps the bottom of an upper bin at a set level above the bottom of the lower bin. So if the contents of the lower bin settle (as it tends to do), you need to pile up the VC in the lower bin so that it comes in contact with the upper bin again. Otherwise the worms need to jump the gap and, as Rom said, they don't jump very well. Does that make sense? Sorry I'm not doing a good job explaining it.

Andrew in Berkeley

if you're on tray 1 for 9 months i'd say you're a pretty disciplined worm keeper. most overfeed and can't wait to get on to the next tray (i know i was). how much material is going into your bin each week?

I had the same problem at one time. The worms just wouldn't move into tray number 2. This is the advice i got and it worked like a charm. The worms started moving freely back and forth after that.

If you are feeding into the second tray and there is a gap between trays you can skim off the top of the second bin and put the lowest part of the bedding into the bottom tray. At the same time take a good bunch (pint) of the compost with worms from the bottom and place it into the second tray. This will introduce a good start of microbes into your second tray.

The worms are staying in the bottom tray right now because there isn't enough microbes it the top tray yet.

It too took me months to build up the 1st working try to a level high enough to touch the bottom of the second tray. I ended up running with one working tray until it was about 1" higher than th required level before adding the second tray. When I eventually did add the new tray and fed there, I had no problems.

Now (more than a year later, I'm still on tray 2, but am ramping up the feeding rates significantly, and the whole system seems to have sped up to meet the new load.

I think with care (and more regular feeding), I'll be on trays 3 and 4 much faster than it took for the first two.

Cheers

What type of worms do you have? I did not have babies for the longest time but I had to increade my moisture. I have European crawlers.

I have red wigglers in there.
They seem to be eating fairly well. I give them banana peels, salad, and newspaper (for roughage lol).
I am thinking about putting tequila in there. Maybe that will get them to breeding more. LOL.

Soak cardboard overnight & rip it up by hand. Great bedding and supposedly encourages breeding. Also heard crushed egg shells do the same. But it sounds like you're doing fine. My WAG would be you didn't start with a full pound and it's just taking a little longer for the worm population to get up to the point they can process more food.

BTW, any idea what the bin temps are? They're also slower to feed & breed in cooler environments. I think 70-80F is supposedly optimal.

Andrew

I think the temperature is actually pretty good where they are at. I may have to try the cardboard thing.