GB943972A - Improvements relating to poultry-plucking apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

943,972. Plucking poultry. COPE WHELON & CO. Ltd. June 22, 1962 [June 23, 1961; July 21, 1961; Sept. 18, 1961], Nos. 22878/61, 26574/61 and 33377/61. Heading A2U. Poultry are plucked by flexible fingers or flails 22 on a shaft 19 co-operating with projecting flexible plucking elements 17 on the inside of a preferably cylindrical drum or cage 11 which is rotated at a different, preferably slower speed in the same direction as the shaft (or in the opposite direction if desired, according to the Provisional Specification). The flails and/or fingers on the shaft and/or drum may be arranged in helical fashion. Flanges 12 on the drum rest in grooved wheels 13, one pair of which are driven by a motor 16. The shaft 19 is belt-and-pulley driven about seventeen times as fast as the drum, e.g. at 350 r.p.m., by a motor 21, and has an axial duct 26 for spraying water into the drum or cage through holes 27. The drum which may be slightly inclined downwards at the exit end, is open-ended to receive and remove fowls and the closure plate 32 at the exit end is movable in an axial direction to allow discharge of the fowls on to a sloping grid 36 through which the feathers fall for collection. The housing 5 of the machine is divided to provide drum, discharge and motor sections 8, 9, 10 respectively, and its support feet 3 are adjustable. The machine may be designed for continuous automatically controlled operation and hot air may be introduced into the drum or compartment 8.