US 5,672,100 AGranted

Method for suspending live poultry by the legs and an apparatus, catching means and slaughter shackle for carrying out the method

AssigneePoutech A/S

InventorsHolger Hjort Nielsen, Torben Brandt S.o slashed.rensen, Ole Br.o slashed.dsgaard, Verner Trygved Jensen, Arne Knudsen

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

patentgrep

Loading patent…

Abstract

Live poultry is caused to face in a desired direction prior to engagement of the poultry legs by a leg catching device by dropping the poultry one-by-one off the terminal end of a moving conveyor onto a lower conveyor having poultry leg engaging devices associated therewith. The poultry leg catching devices engage the poultry legs and the poultry are then inverted as they are conveyed to slaughter shackles. A slaughter shackle is configured to receive sets of poultry legs from the leg catching devices in a continuous process. The poultry is delivered to the first conveyor from poultry transportation boxes that are inverted along a horizontal axis to vertically drop the poultry onto a delivery conveyor system from which the poultry are delivered one-by-one to the first conveyor.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method of suspending live poultry by their legs comprising:

placing the poultry individually one-by-one on a first running conveyor device having a downstream terminal end and running in a longitudinal conveying direction to move the poultry individually one-by-one in the longitudinal conveying direction in standing or sitting positions with the feet of the poultry on the conveyor device;
conveying the poultry to the downstream terminal end of the first conveyor device and dropping the poultry over said terminal end towards a lower position;
providing at least a second running conveyor device having an upstream area running in a longitudinal conveying direction located at least in part at said lower position, and conveying the poultry dropped towards said second conveyor device in the conveying direction of the second conveyor device;
and
incidental to said last conveying step, catching the legs of individual dropped poultry by a mechanical catching device and suspending the poultry by their legs in an inverted position by said catching device while conveying the poultry onwards away from the first conveyor device.

2 more elements

Apparatus for suspending live poultry comprising:

a first longitudinally extending conveyor device, said first conveyor having a downstream terminal end;
at least a second conveyor device having at least an upstream area located below the downstream terminal end of the first conveyor device;
a movable leg catching device arranged to be movable into engagement with the legs of individual conveyed poultry associated with said second conveyor device and located below the downstream terminal end of the first conveyor device;
whereby poultry conveyed one-by-one on said first conveyor device with the feet of the poultry on the conveyor surface may be dropped off the terminal downstream end thereof towards an upstream area of the second conveyor device to cause the poultry to orient themselves in a single preferred direction and whereby the legs of the poultry may be engaged by the mechanical leg catching device after the poultry have dropped below the downstream terminal end of the first conveyor device.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.