In my experience upgrading hatcheries and stables only reduces collection time.
And not by much. Just read a similar thread about mines; decreasing collection time from 4 hours to 3 hours 35 mins (lvl 3) - what's the point?
At some point you need to update a deep mine to level 5 to continue the main story line. Is there something similar w hatcheries or stables?
Developers: would be nice if the upgrade was substantial, e g bring collection time down to 2 hours and/or increase what they drop (like the academy).