GB603639A - Improvements in or relating to method of picking or dressing poultry - Google Patents

Abstract

603,639. Plucking poultry. INDUSTRIAL PATENTS CORPORATION. March 7. 1945, No. 5685. Convention date, Sept. 8. 1944. [Class 28(ii)] Poultry are plucked by mechanically suspending them with their axes vertical and subjecting each carcase during suspension to a substantially tangential beating substantially along the carcase and then performing a second similar beating in the reverse longitudinal direction of the carcase. The first beating is done against the lay of the feathers and the second beating is done with the lay of the feathers. A suitable automatic machine is described in U.S.A. Specification 2.328,770. Each fowl after scalding to open the pores and loosen the feathers is suspended first by its feet on detachable shackles 10 (e.g. as described in U.S.A. Specification 2,035,948). The shackles are hooked on a conveyer chain 8 and passed through a plucking machine 15-26. On emerging an operator reverses the fowl so that it is suspended by the head after which it passes through the other machine 15-26. Instead of having two machines, fowls may be suspended first on alternate shackles and after passing through one machine the operator may transfer a fowl to a vacant shackle on the inlet side and suspend it head up so that it passes through the machine a second time. This double treatment eliminates the need for removing unplucked feathers by waxing and removing the remaining feathers with the wax. One form of plucking machine, Fig. 2, comprises rubber fingers 21 on a pair of rotors 20 geared together and driven by a motor 22. The machine is provided with a housing 26 to catch the feathers. When a shackle 10 of the travelling conveyer actuates a switch 17, each rotor 20 with its plucking fingers 21 and the feather catching box 26 moves up over the fowl in plucking position for a predetermined interval of time and then recedes down out of plucking position, thus striking at the feathers in both directions. In an alternative machine the fowls might be lowered and then raised through stationary pluckers.