The Pita Pinta Asturiana

Definitely -- she is a very mellow broody. She comes down to eat and drink, etc. She has been broody for a while but has never been aggressive -- mostly this morning she was just sad and made little distressed noises when she realized that the egg was gone, and I felt bad!
Give her a couple of chicks!

 
I am at 15 pita pintas and 12 delawares now. Two eggs may still hatch, one pita pinta and one delaware. I had to set up a second brooder.
Great hatch!!! How many did you start with? Pics??????
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Great hatch!!! How many did you start with? Pics??????
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39 eggs, 36 set to hatch(3 duds removed), and 29 hatched
I gave him 18 Del eggs and 21 Pita eggs
15 pitas and 14 dels hatched. A Pita and a Del are iffy for making. One pita is in a splint for Spraddle leg.

Pitas (14 in the picture. 15 was in the incubator still:



Dels, not all in picture:

 
39 eggs, 36 set to hatch(3 duds removed), and 29 hatched
15 pitas and 14 dels hatched. A Pita and a Del are iffy for making. One pita is in a splint for Spraddle leg.

Pitas (14 in the picture. 15 was in the incubator still:



Dels, not all in picture:

Adorable!!! I'm so glad that you hatched so many PP! My hatching has been rough this year. They aren't hatching as well as 2 yrs ago with Zorro's chicks. Pedro is just approaching 1 yr old so he is young and the hens are all around 2 yrs old. I started giving them some supplements to see if it helps with vitality. I also have made sure that no Langshan hens can get to my boy. He just prefers those big ladies! I have 15 eggs ready to set for hatch in my Brinsea so we'll see how well they do.
 
Adorable!!! I'm so glad that you hatched so many PP! My hatching has been rough this year. They aren't hatching as well as 2 yrs ago with Zorro's chicks. Pedro is just approaching 1 yr old so he is young and the hens are all around 2 yrs old. I started giving them some supplements to see if it helps with vitality. I also have made sure that no Langshan hens can get to my boy. He just prefers those big ladies! I have 15 eggs ready to set for hatch in my Brinsea so we'll see how well they do.
I hope it goes better for you!

Since the older brinsea does not have a built in cooling cycle, consider doing it manually. Turn the incubator off for two hours a day from day 8 to 18. With the Genesis, I would turn it off and then go do chicken chores. Two hours is ideal for chicken eggs but less if fine.

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Don't forget to turn it back on though...I did that once and the bator was off for half a day. Eggs hatched fine though!
 
I hope it goes better for you!

Since the older brinsea does not have a built in cooling cycle, consider doing it manually. Turn the incubator off for two hours a day from day 8 to 18. With the Genesis, I would turn it off and then go do chicken chores. Two hours is ideal for chicken eggs but less if fine.

hide.gif
Don't forget to turn it back on though...I did that once and the bator was off for half a day. Eggs hatched fine though!
What day do you start using the cool down cycle? I'm going to try it with the eggs that I have in my cabinet hatcher.
 
What day do you start using the cool down cycle? I'm going to try it with the eggs that I have in my cabinet hatcher.
Details here:

Home → Periodic Cooling in Incubation

It is a surprising fact that, although eggs must have very stable temperatures to incubate successfully, periodic cooling can be a good thing and far from harming the development of chicks, can actually lead to more successful hatching.

Bird breeders have known for many decades that eggs can be cooled for limited periods of time during incubation without causing problems but recent research has shown that hatch rates can actually increase significantly as a result of cooling.


Follow the link to read the full research paper on cooling eggs during incubation.

Cooling is an entirely natural process as most birds will get off the nest at least once a day and leave the eggs unheated for a significant time. From Brinsea’s 35 year experience, the best hatch rates are always achieved when the incubator can best mimic the natural nest conditions. For this reason Brinsea® have incorporated a cooling option in our Advance models of egg incubators for 2012.

Based on the results of the research paper above the user of an Octagon® 40 Advance could expect one additional egg to hatch on average.

Brinsea's cooling feature turns the incubator’s heater and low temperature alarm off for a selectable period but keeps the fan running. After the cooling period is complete the incubator reverts to normal temperature and the alarm is automatically reset. The cooling function is optional and the user can select cooling periods of 60, 120, 180, 240, 300 and 360 minutes with fixed 24 hour intervals. The default setting is that cooling is set to off. This new function applies to the Advance and Advance EX versions of the Mini, Octagon® 20, Octagon®40, OvaEasy 190, 380 and 580 models.

Brinsea® have assessed the available research and recommend that smaller poultry, waterfowl and game bird eggs are cooled for 1 hour each day and larger eggs (e.g. duck and goose) are cooled for 2 hours each day from day 7 through to 2 days before they are due to hatch (the same point that automatic turning would normally be turned off). Cooling is not recommended for parrots and birds of prey because the results of cooling for these species haven’t yet been established. This cooling feature is an option which can be enabled to improve your hatch rates.

Further reading on the effects of periodic cooling of incubating eggs can be found here:

Joseph Batty ‘Artificial Incubation and Rearing’ 1994. P103. ‘…there is no doubt that the natural cooling given by the hen when she leaves the nest for feeding does result in very strong chicks’ ‘In the small incubator the cooling given when eggs are being turned or candled should be beneficial’

F. Bogenfurst, Pannon University of agriculture, Hungary. 1997. Experiment showed the increase in hatch rate of geese eggs with periodic cooling. Concluded ‘Incubation results improved with periodic cooling’.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Goose Production by Roger Buckland and Gérard Guy, ‘The eggs should be cooled each day during incubation by opening the doors of the setters for 15 minutes from days 4-27’.
 

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