I would do an extremely thorough cleaning before jumping into a new one. Might just be the heating element needs replaced. As long as the auger is pushing pellets, the only other issue would be the element, that i can imagine.
2nd doe went further than we thought but we found her. No time for pics, they snatched her up and dig her out. I did see a shit ton of blood on the track, on her plus some pink foamy blood.