GB604970A - An improved animal feeder - Google Patents

Abstract

604,970. Feeding animals. THORNTON, R. Dec. 11, 1945, No. 33427. Convention date, April 3. [Class 5(ii)] Relates to animal feeding devices in which predetermined quantities of food are released by the animal pushing against an oscillatory member, and consists in utilising the movement of the said member to grind the food during its passage from a hopper to a trough. A shaft 12 is mounted at the top of a box 10 with its axis parallel to the longitudinal centreline of the trough-shaped floor 11. A flap 16 is suspended on the shaft by bent strips 15 which carry counterweights 17 at their free ends and so balance the flap 16 that it closes the front opening of the box. A pawl 21 mounted on the upper surface of one strip 15 engages with a ratchet wheel 20 secured to the shaft, so that an animal pushing the flap 16 causes a partial rotation of the shaft 12. A hopper 23 communicating with a chute 22 is mounted in the upper part of the box near the ratchetwheel 20. Food is delivered to the hopper from an overhead bin. A grinding-disc 25 is adjustably secured to the shaft 12 before a second grinding-disc 24 fixed to the outside of the hopper over the chute mouth, the shaft passing through this second disc 24 and through the hopper. A worm 26 on the portion of the shaft within the hopper feeds grain through the annular space 27 between the second disc 24 and the shaft 12 to the space between the two discs where it is crushed and released through the chute to the floor of the box. The space between the discs can be regulated by a screw 28 situated outside the box at one end of the shaft 12.