Because I recommended the cage to so many, I want to give a full disclosure.
I am using JB Weld Water to fix the leaking issues with our 5-layer Hatching Time quail cage. This is a very common problem with all of Hatching Time cages going back many years. One can find plenty of evidence of this if one looks at forums and groups and the different websites with reviews.
The first cage was a pain to assemble due to holes and plastic pins that did not line up well and flash (excess plastic) in the holes. Reviews show a lot of people have struggled with putting it together.
The second cage was much easier to assemble (holes and pins lined up), but it is leaking like crazy from five different places. Five gallons of water on your floor makes a mess and can damage things.
The square plug that you see is one leaking issue. This area is assembled at the factory. The gasket is pushed out on this particular one, but the others don't have this showing..and they still drip. We have three of those square plugs leaking. I contacted the company, and they said they would send replacement plugs. From the reviews, they will most likely leak again or develop a leak over time. JB Weld solved the issue in an hour. However, I will not be able to remove the square water pipe intact again.
The black hoses are leaking from three places. I made sure they were seated with no gaps, but they still drip. Clint checked my connections and said they were correct. We are now trying to get hose clamps to work on that side. I am close to having it resolved, but I am days into it. I don't like using my time to fix a known issue. Hatching Time should provide better support and should come up with a better watering system.
I researched the competitor, Wynola Ranch, who makes a nice metal stackable cage that can be used indoors and outside. It is predator-proof and has a float valve on the water troughs. However, I learned from several reviews that the wire floors are tearing up the birds' feet which is worse. Bumblefoot is not fun to treat. I'd rather work out the water issues than have injured birds.
If you buy an HT cage, expect to have to work with the leaky water system. So many of their customers are having a problem, I guess it is a given it will be a problem. It is very frustrating with the $826 total for one cage. It should be a turnkey system, but it is not.
Clint did not have the time to build cages, so I had to find something I could assemble quickly to accommodate our birds who needed to be moved out of brooder boxes. I strongly recommend you build your own if you have the time and skillset. You can save yourself time, money, and frustration. If you can't do that, maybe you can contract someone to build one.
For a more affordable indoor system, Amazon sells sets of six cages (24x16) for around $150 with slide-out trays. I THINK three of those are close to the space in one row of the HT cages. Even if it takes all six of them to equal the space, it is still a much better deal. For the savings, they can affordably be modified with auto feeders and waterers and placed on inexpensive plastic shelving. The trays are not very deep, but they can be suspended over containers with the tray removed. I can not speak for how well the birds' feet will do on the wire in the cage, but that can be modified with coated wire or plastic grid. If it still flexes, a support in the middle could help. I am just throwing out ideas for others. I kind of wish I had gone that route, but I did not learn about it until after my purchase.
As a side note, we have hard well water that will clog up the water system (ask me how I know), so we collect rainwater for all of our nipple watering systems.
If you have any questions, please see the header. Our email is there.
Update: Hatching Time sent out five entire water pipes (the long square-shaped pipe with water nipples that runs along the back of the cage). They arrived about two days after our emails with them. It is more than we expected or needed. It will allow us to replace all of the pipes in one cage. We could have fixed the issue with two of the $3 square end plug. We are very pleased with their response to the leaking issues we experienced.
