Hatching Time 9.5" Chick Brooders – Stackable or 2-Section Options with Automatic Heating, Modular Design, Easy to Clean, Ideal for Quail, Pheasant, and Baby Chicks (2 Layer)

The media could not be loaded. I don’t write reviews often, but for a product that is expensive, I thought I’d give my opinion for other buyers.I breed silkie chicks & hatch year round. I previously used a tote for new hatchlings but my cat at my chicks one to many times. I needed something that would keep my chicks secure from the cat, but also make my job easier!I only plan to keep chicks in this from 0-2 weeks old. After that, I transition to a different brooder. So my review is only for chicks in that age range.Pros: it keeps my chicks comfortable. The thermostat is easy to adjust. The flooring is appropriate for chicks although I use some paper towels to help with cleanup. The waterers & feeders are great. The watering cups work great. It’s plastic so it’s very durable & washable. The cord is long!Cons: it is fairly difficult to assemble. It took me a few hours. The waterer connection is leaking, so I’ll have to take it back apart & fix it, but it is fixable, just something I didn’t notice when putting together. The thermostat is in Celsius. There isn’t a built in thermometer to monitor the temperature, but I added my own. The feed tray that connects to the front is meant for older chicks. Newly hatched chicks will jump through the holes & end up stuck in the feed bin where it’s not heated. I simply just blocked that off with cardboard & zip tied the feeder guard to the bottom to make a fence. Works perfectly! There isn’t a way to turn off the light system. You’ll need to buy your own light bulb.Anyways, if you hatch chicks often, this works great as a brooder! It would even work great for older chicks to grow in, but maybe only for a month or so.

Nice unit. Assembly was fairly easy but directions are weak. Easy clean and the simplicity is a sign of forward thinking about the design and functionality of the product.

The idea is great but the workmanship is *$@#. Nothing stays together because everything is plastic. Every time the temp changes in the room something comes undone. I finally after loosing birds started tieing things together with string and holding things together with clamps. My dogs give this a 5 star because they get the babies that get out.7

This was a bit of a challenge to put together but works great once it’s done. The water reservoir was broken but the company shipped a new one immediately!

This is a great product. This is my first time raising quail and this brooder was a huge help. Easy to clean simple to put together and works well. My biggest concern was holding temperature but it did a great job and held a steady temperature. Will be buying more hatching time products soon

I held off making any kind of judgment on this last year as I wanted to see how well it would last to pretty much monthly use. Although the idea is in the right place, the engineering and design are lacking unless it had actual quality parts. First off, the heating element is extremely poorly designed. The wiring that controls lighting, thermometer and the heating element are all located at the neck of the power supply where you insert the long element through the side. While the idea is good, the plastic connectors that are supposed to keep the wires in place and protected is too cheap to actually provide the long element with any type of stability. One wrong motion as you place this through the side of the brooder, and you're now facing multiple wires being ripped out and possibly damaging the element itself. I've already had to replace the wiring inside twice because the humidity of the unit and the poorly designed wiring protectors rust within days of first use.Second, the plastic parts that are prefabricated are horribly misshapen or straight out damaged when you get them in the mail. I'm not the only person who has commented on this as it seems to be the baseline case, not the exception.Third, assembly is challenging not because it's a complicated unit, but because the pictures in the manual were for a completely different unit. They seem to have a single manual of pictures with no instructions that was for some other base model they don't sell anymore. I actually assembled the kit backwards the first time not realizing it till I went to insert the legs with wheels and found I was upside down and backwards.I will say as far as floor design, cleaning is superior to most setups and the gravity water system is functional. The feed bin in the front unfortunately has never actually fit the unit, so when the chicks go to get food, they'd constantly knock it out of place, even with light pecking. I had to modify the bin just to be able to use it.Overall, I can give it at most two stars. It's got the right idea, but for almost $400, this is a hard pass. Don't waste your time on it. I can say honestly after a full year I wouldn't choose it again.

Plastic is warped and will not snap together easily. I have purchased 2 other cages with only minor issues that were either resolved by me or the company. I would not recommend purchasing this brooder until they fix the current problems with this model.

Easy to put together and clean. Works like described. The price is a little much with being plastic. Heat on one side.