Poultry litter disintegrating machine
AssigneePriefert Mfg. Co., Inc.
InventorJack Willingham
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The litter disintegrating machine is tractor drawn over a poultry raising area. Ripper teeth extended forwardly of and mounted on the side walls of the machine act with the forward edges of the side walls to provide a section of litter for travel between the side walls. On advance of the machine, the section of litter between the side walls is acted upon by a rotary flail unit extended between and mounted on the side walls rearwardly of the ripper teeth for disintegration and discharge back to the ground floor for reuse. The density of the discharged litter material may be varied by varying its rate of discharge from the machine.
Claims4
A machine for disintegrating poultry litter accumulated as a covering layer on the ground surface of a poultry raising area comprising:
- (a) a housing enclosure having a pair of transversely opposite upright end walls with lower edges, and a top wall to provide an open forward side and an open bottom side;
- (b) an elongated longitudinal ground runner secured to and extended linearly along the lower edge of each end wall, each ground runner having a top surface and a front litter-ripping tooth projected forwardly from an associated side wall;
- (c) a flail unit within the housing extended between said end walls and including a shaft rotatably mounted on said end walls;
- and
- (d) litter disintegrating flail members pivotally mounted on said shaft in an axially spaced relation with the circular path defined by the terminal ends of said flail members, on rotation of said flail unit, having a bottom portion spaced a predetermined distance above the top surfaces of said ground runners, whereby on a forward advance of the housing enclosure the flail members disintegrate the litter located between the end walls and the top surfaces of said ground runners.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.