What do you think of Tractor Supply’s new chick bins?

[RebekahTN]

I hate that its only one bin and not the stacked ones! i dont think i want to pay 200 for only a single box.

These are stackable. You just have to add 4 brackets to make them stack. This way, you only have to buy what you want/need not necessarily 5. I thought it was reasonably priced to have the feeder, waterer and heating plate included. Heating plates can be from $50-100 by themselves.

 

[RebekahTN]

Really? I purchased on online about 5 days ago to be shipped to my store. I checked yesterday with the manager there and he said the system is showing a Friday (tomorrow) expected delivery date.

That was on Monday that I found them online, but couldn't purchase online. It said, this item can't be purchased online please remove from you cart. We picked them up yesterday in store. Today when I went back to look for some details in the ad, they aren't showing online at all. Even with the exact name and SKU number I had written down.

 

[father0fnine]

That was on Monday that I found them online, but couldn't purchase online. It said, this item can't be purchased online please remove from you cart. We picked them up yesterday in store. Today when I went back to look for some details in the ad, they aren't showing online at all. Even with the exact name and SKU number I had written down.

Oh my! You are so right. I can't even call up my order from online. It's like it disappeared. We will find out tomorrow...

 

[RebekahTN]

Here is the new brooder all set up.

Here is my little helping put it together with "her" tools. It was actually REALLY EASY to put together although a couple of the pictures could have had sections blown up a little. Second one took less than 30 minutes to put together.

The top one with my youngest babies hiding under the heat plate at bedtime. I was concerned after reading everyone else's concerns with TSC that the the chicks would not be warm enough. This is the set up I had in my previous brooder of clear plastic totes. It works great and I can still use the nipple waterers that I love. It would be able to go most of the way up and still allow me to use them.

These are my older chicks that are 3 and 4 weeks old. I was just checking to see what 20 chicks at 6 weeks old might look like. I would NOT recommend on letting 20 chicks grow to 6 weeks. (All of these will NOT be staying here - the 4 week olds are moving outside this weekend - I prefer to move them outside when I will be home all day so I can supervise their well being)

 

[cmobley]

Does the black honeycomb floor come out to be scrubbed and cleaned or does it have access to reach in good and brillo pad it?

 

[RebekahTN]

I should also write that I did NOT feel like the brooder setting (40 watt) was high enough for even this size chicks (3 and 4 weeks) with the heater that came with it on the lowest possible setting. I feel the heater should be able to move closer to the chick than it does. It will move higher than in this pic but this is the lowest setting. I put it on heater which I believe was 200 watt and then worried about them getting to hot and not having enough room to get away from it so I tilted it as much as possible so that taller ones could get less heat and shorter ones more. I kept waking up during the night to check on them (NOT intentionally) and they were doing fine. I will be leaving it on heater. The house was at 63 so it's not like they would have frozen... but they were used to the warmer heat plates.

 

[droy1028]

Theyre selling those same heat plates on the shelf next to the new brooders at my TSC. I bought two because they seemed like a steal for 40 bucks.

What I noticed is on brooder setting they don't seem to put off as much heat as you'd expect, especially at the height of the new brooder system they have. My chicks have been happy with it though, set from day 1 at the second adjustable height level. They LOVE perching on top of it.

That obviously isn't the case at TSC because how they have them suspended from the top of each brooder is using the "zero clearance suspension" setting. Which is nice for the heater setting. Maybe theyre using that instead of the brooder or maybe the person who set it up has it set wrong in terms of heater vs brooder. I haven't used heater setting so idk how warm it gets though.

 

[Mister B]

I noticed those the last time I was in Tractor Supply. Looked at the chicks and saw a few dead ones. Pointed them out to a nearby employee. She looked perturbed. Later I found out that they had several die over the last few days. They thought it may be the position of the brooders in the store. At our local Rural King, they still use the galvanized tubs with a heat lamp clamped to one end. I'm not sure of their death rate.

 

[RebekahTN]

Does the black honeycomb floor come out to be scrubbed and cleaned or does it have access to reach in good and brillo pad it?

It easily slides out but you would need to remove all the chicks to do that. You can also reach in. I have only had it set up 2 days, but MOST of the poop has fallen through into the easily removable tray, even for the older ones. I was kind of surprised. I will take it the floor out and clean it when I move one group out and the next in. I would like a couple more of these.... to break my ages out even further and allow littles to stay in the house a bit longer, especially when hatching early spring and late fall. During the summer being outside is not as big a deal.

 

[RebekahTN]

Theyre selling those same heat plates on the shelf next to the new brooders at my TSC. I bought two because they seemed like a steal for 40 bucks.

What I noticed is on brooder setting they don't seem to put off as much heat as you'd expect, especially at the height of the new brooder system they have. My chicks have been happy with it though, set from day 1 at the second adjustable height level. They LOVE perching on top of it.

I noticed they had the same plates after reading on this thread. They are exactly the same except no legs. I am going to call customer service and see if I can order legs for it. I already had this heat plate or I would have been looking into getting one. TMy bigger chicks have been jumping on the suspended heater as well. They do it to my heat plates to. I don't mind. More to do to keep them busy.
I though the brooder setting was lower than it should be as well. The heater setting does give off more heat. Just make sure when you are switching between the 2 settings that you get the new setting. It switches from brooder to OFF and then to Heater. I thought I was switching to heater the first time and actually only switched it to off.