WO2023033640A1

WO2023033640A1 - A device for feeding poultry

Info

Publication number: WO2023033640A1
Application number: PCT/MY2022/050073
Authority: WO
Inventors: Seow Heong TAN; Muhamad Ikhwan Bin MUHAMAD AZIZIE
Original assignee: Pristine Glory Sdn Bhd
Priority date: 2021-08-30
Filing date: 2022-08-18
Publication date: 2023-03-09
Also published as: CN115720860A

Abstract

The present invention relates to a device (100) for feeding poultry, the device (100) comprising a top bracket; a feeding body comprising an excluder (3) and a skirt (2); and a feeding pan (5); wherein the top bracket comprises a top cap lock (11), a bracket body (13) and a bottom cap lock (15); wherein the bracket body (13) comprises recesses for mounting onto a feeding tube (7) and for receiving a shut off means (8) and a sensor (9); wherein the skirt (2) has tabs (21) extended from the bottom and the feeding pan (5) has slots (51) for receiving the tabs (21) for center drop locking and holding the feed; wherein the feeding pan (5) slidably engaged at the bottom of the excluder (3); and wherein the device (100) is extendable as the feeding pan (5) slides down when rising and retractable as the feeding pan (5) slides up when placing on ground.

Description

A DEVICE FOR FEEDING POULTRY

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates generally to a feeding device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a feeding device with adjustable feed level feature to fit with the height of the poultry.

BACKGROUND ART

The poultry industry is an attractive and fast growing agroindustry in many countries of the world. The increasing demand for poultry meat urges an industrial oriented farming system to achieve more efficient and optimal poultry meat production. Hence, adequate feeding becomes a challenge, resulting to manual feeding technique in poultry farming. This consumes a lot of time and spends a lot of energy on the labor cost thus increase the cost of production.

Automated feeding systems for poultry and domestic animals have proven to be highly successful in modern animal husbandry operations. These systems can supply feed mixtures to a large poultry flock with minimum effort by the poultry grower. Both the amounts of feed to be delivered and the proportions of feed ingredients can be regulated, thus permitting the flock to be inexpensively raised from chicks to mature, commercially valuable birds in a relatively short time.

Utilization of the feeding device for automated feeding systems has gained popularity for the past several years, some of the examples are discussed in the following:

US10827728B2 discloses an adjustable feeder pan system for feeding poultry. The feeder pan system includes a cone portion, an excluder portion that includes a number of anti-rake and radially disposed fins, a skirt, a feed pan, a cap, and optionally a feed shut-off component. The cone includes a pair of stops that may selectively engage with one of a number of pairs of corresponding slots of varying depths on the excluder portion so as to provide multiple feed levels as desired and depending upon the size and age of the poultry being fed. However, the design of the feeder pan system is complex and burdensome for cleaning and maintenance.

Accordingly, an improved design of a feed device for poultry is needed to overcome the shortcomings of the existing feeder, particularly a simple design to ease cleaning and maintenance. It is also a need to provide a detachable feed device for thorough and effective cleaning.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The following presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.

It is an objective of the present invention to provide an expandable and retractable feeding device for feeding poultry at different height.

It is also an objective of the present invention to provide a feeding device with double barrier to prevent spillage during feeding.

It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide a feeding device comprises feed sensor integrated with the operation for controlling feed level within the feeding device.

Accordingly, these objectives may be achieved by following the teachings of the present invention. The present invention relates to a device for feeding poultry, the device comprising a top bracket; a feeding body comprising an excluder and a skirt; and a feeding pan; characterized in that the top bracket comprises a top cap lock, a bracket body and a bottom cap lock; wherein the bracket body comprises recesses for mounting onto a feeding tube and for receiving a shut off means and a sensor; wherein the skirt has tabs extended from the bottom and the feeding pan has slots for receiving the tabs for center drop locking and holding the feed; wherein the feeding pan is slidably engaged at the bottom of the excluder; wherein the device is extendable as the feeding pan slides down when rising and retractable as the feeding pan slides up when placing on ground.

The foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood from a careful reading of a detailed description provided herein below with appropriate reference to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

So that the manner in which the above recited features of the present invention can be understood in detail, a more particular description of the invention, briefly summarized above, may have been referred by embodiments, some of which are illustrated in the appended drawings. It is to be noted, however, that the appended drawings illustrate only typical embodiment of this invention and is therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to other equally effective embodiments.

These and other features, benefits, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent by reference to the following text figure, with like reference numbers referring to like structures across the view, wherein:

Figure 1 A shows a perspective view of a feeding device (100) in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 1 B shows a front view of the feeding device (100) of Figure 1 A;

Figure 1 C shows a left side view of the feeding device (100) of Figure 1A;

Figure 1 D shows a right side view of the feeding device (100) of Figure 1A;

Figure 1 E shows a top view of the feeding device (100) of Figure 1A;

Figure 1 F shows a bottom view of the feeding device (100) of Figure 1 A;

Figure 2A shows a side perspective view of the feeding pan (5) in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 2B shows a side view of the feeding pan (5) of Figure 2A;

Figure 2C shows a top view of the feeding pan (5) of Figure 2A;

Figure 2D shows a bottom view of the feeding pan (5) of Figure 2A;

Figure 3A shows a side perspective view of the skirt (2) in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 3B shows a side view of the skirt (2) of Figure 3A;

Figure 3C shows a top view of the skirt (2) of Figure 3A;

Figure 3D shows a bottom view of the skirt (2) of Figure 3A;

Figure 4A shows a side perspective view of the excluder (3) in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 4B shows a side view of the excluder (3) of Figure 4A;

Figure 4C shows a top view of the excluder (3) of Figure 4A;

Figure 4D shows an enlarged view of the excluder (3) at section A ;

Figure 5A shows a side perspective view of the top cap lock (11 ) in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 5B shows a side view of the top cap lock (11 ) of Figure 5A;

Figure 5C shows a front view of the top cap lock (11 ) of Figure 5A;

Figure 5D shows a top view of the top cap lock (11 ) of Figure 5A;

Figure 5E shows a bottom view of the top cap lock (11 ) of Figure 5A;

Figure 6A shows a side perspective view of the bracket body (13) mounted in the bottom cap lock (15) in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 6B shows a side view of the bracket body (13) of Figure 6A;

Figure 6C shows a front view of the bracket body (13) of Figure 66A;

Figure 6D shows a top view of the bracket body (13) of Figure 6A;

Figure 6E shows a bottom view of the bracket body (13) of Figure 6A;

Figure 7A is a cross-sectional view illustrates the feeding device (100) on ground position in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 7B is a cross-sectional view illustrates the feeding device (100) on rising position in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 8A illustrates the feeding device (100) receiving a sensor (9) in a recess of the top bracket;

Figure 8B illustrates the sensor (9) is being removed from the feeding device (100) in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 9A illustrates detachment of the top cap lock (11 ) from the bracket body (13) via a sliding mechanism in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 9B illustrates rotation of the feeding device (100) at the excluder (3) to detach the feeding body from the top bracket which mount on the feeding tube;

Figure 9C illustrates detachment of the feeding body from the bottom cap lock (15) via a sliding mechanism after rotation as shown in Figure 9B; and

Figure 10 shows an exemplary of auto feeding system comprises the feeding devices (10) in accordance to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

As required, detailed embodiments of the present invention are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the invention, which may be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting but merely as a basis for claims. It should be understood that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the invention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. As used throughout this application, the word "may" is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words "include," "including," and "includes" mean including, but not limited to. Further, the words "a" or "an" mean "at least one” and the word "plurality" means one or more, unless otherwise mentioned. Where the abbreviations or technical terms are used, these indicate the commonly accepted meanings as known in the technical field.

The present invention is described hereinafter by various embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein reference numerals used in the accompanying drawings correspond to the like elements throughout the description. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiment set forth herein. Rather, the embodiment is provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. In the following detailed description, numeric values and ranges are provided for various aspects of the implementations described. These values and ranges are to be treated as examples only, and are not intended to limit the scope of the claims. In addition, a number of materials are identified as suitable for various facets of the implementations. These materials are to be treated as exemplary, and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

Referring to the drawings, the invention will now be described in more detail.

Referring to Figures 1A to 1 F, the present invention relates to a device (100) for feeding poultry, the device (100) comprising a top bracket; a feeding body comprising an excluder (3) and a skirt (2) ; and a feeding pan (5); characterized in that the top bracket comprises a top cap lock (11 ), a bracket body (13) and a bottom cap lock (15); and the skirt (2) has tabs (21 ) extended from the bottom and the feeding pan (5) has slots (51 ) for receiving the tabs (21 ) for center drop locking and holding the feed.

Referring to Figures 2A to 2D of an embodiment of the present invention, the feeding pan (5) is a circular pan having a conical portion protruding from the centre of the pan (5). In addition, the base of the feeding pan (5) comprises plurality of holes (52) for drainage. As shown in the Figures 2A, 2C and 2D, the feeding pan (5) has multiple slots (51 ) at the base. The position and number of the slots (51 ) are corresponding to the position and number of the tabs (21 ) of the skirt for center drop locking.

Referring to Figures 3A to 3D, the skirt (2) has a conical body with a narrow cylindrical portion extended from the top of the body. The skirt (2) also has tabs (21 ) extended from the bottom, whereby the tabs are inserted into the slots (51 ) of the feeding pan (5) for center drop locking and holding the feed. Each of the tabs (21 ) may comprise a spring clip (22) having thicker width, whereby when inserting the tabs (21 ) into the slots (51 ), the spring clip (22) squeezes into the slots (51 ) and retain at the slots (51 ) via the thicker width portion for locking the skirt (2) to the feeding pan (5).

Referring to Figures 4A to 4D, the excluder (3) has a cylindrical upper part and a wider conical lower part. The upper part of the excluder (3) comprises plurality of gripping holes (34) for cleaning. The inner wall of the upper part comprises hinges (35) for locking the excluder (3) to the top bracket. More particularly, the excluder (3) is coupled to the bottom cap lock (15) of the top bracket by engaging the hinges (35) of the upper part to the slots of the bottom cap lock (15). The excluder (3) also having a plurality of fins (31 ) with incline shape extending from the lower part dividing the excluder (3) into multiple chambers. Furthermore, the excluder (3) further comprises an inner edge (32) at the bottom surrounding the peripheral to prevent feed spillage. The inner edge (32) forms a Il-curved edge at each chamber of the excluder (3) where the lower curve allows the poultry to access easily to the feed and the higher curve forms as barrier to prevent feed spillage. The excluder (3) comprises an outer rim (33) for receiving outer edge (53) of the feeding pan (5).

Referring to Figures 5A to 5E, the top cap lock (11 ) has a pyramid shape and a projection on top surface with opening to fit in the feed line hanging wire. The bottom of the top cap lock (11 ) comprises latches (12) for coupling the top cap lock (11 ) to the bracket body (13). Referring to Figures 6A to 6E, the bracket body (13) comprises recesses for mounting onto a feeding tube (7) and for receiving a shut off means (8) and a sensor (9). More preferably, a first recess (71 ) is formed on the top of the bracket body (13) for receiving the feeding tube (7) and thereafter attaching to the top cap lock (11 ) via the latches (12). The latches (12) of the top cap lock (11 ) and the bracket body (13) are engaged via a sliding mechanism. The second recess (72) is formed at the side of the bracket body (13) for receiving the sensor and a third recess (73) is formed below the first recess (71 ) at the bracket body (13) for receiving the shut off means (8). The bottom cap lock (15) has an annular shape and the excluder (3) is attached to the bottom cap lock (15) via a sliding mechanism. The top cap lock (11 ), the bracket body (13) and the bottom cap lock (15) are integrated via a sliding mechanism.

In operation, the feeding tube (7) is receiving the feed from a feed silo and the feed shut off means (8) is slide outward from the third recess (73) at the bracket body (13) to enable the feed to flow from the feeding tube (7) to the device (100). The feed will flow from the feeding tube (7) to the receiving portion in between the skirt (2) and the feeding pan (5), and feeds will be evenly distributed at each chamber of the excluder (3). When the feeding device (100) is not in use, the shut off means (8) slides into the third recess (73) at the bracket body (13) and prevent the feed to flow from the feeding tube (7) to the device (100).

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the device (100) is extendable and retractable at ground and rising positions. Referring to Figure 7A, the feeding device (100) is located at ground position where the pan (5) base has a fixed height to match with one day old chick and give enough space for chick’s leg to stand in comfort while eating. As the chicks grows up, the height of the feeding base can be adjusted by rising the feeding device (100). The rising of the feeding device (100) by pulling up the top bracket will render the excluder (3) to move upward. Simultaneously, the feeding pan (5), which the outer edge (53) is attaching with the outer rim (33) of the excluder (3), slides down within the outer rim (33) of the excluder (3), rendering different height of the feeding pan (5) via extension as illustrated in Figure 7B. The rising of the feeding device (100) also increases the feeding volume as the space in between the feeding pan (5) and the skirt (2) increase. In a preferred embodiment, the feeding pan (5) is a folding pan that is expandable as the feeding pan (5) slides down.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the sensor (9) is a feed sensor to detect feeding level. Referring to Figure 8A, the sensor (9) is integrated to the second recess (72) at the bracket body (13) when the feeding device (100) is in operation to control the feed volume. When the feeds are filled in the feeding device (100), the sensor (9) will be disintegrated from the feeding device (100) (as illustrated in Figure 8B) and integrate to subsequent feeding device (100) in the pan feeding line.

In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the top bracket is detachable for cleaning and maintenance. The cleaning operation is performed when the feeds are completely clear in the feeding device (100), the top bracket will be detached from the feeding device (100) by disengaging the top cap lock (11 ) from the bracket body (13). Clean water will be sprayed on the feeding device (100) through the pipeline system, the water enters gripping holes (34) to clean inner surface which is the receiving portion. After the stains and dirts are removed, the sewage will be drained out from the small holes (52) at the base of the feeding pan (5).

The sliding mechanism of the feeding device (100) is illustrated in Figure 9A and 9B. Referring to Figure 9A, the top cap lock (11 ) is attached to the bracket body (13) via sliding mechanism at the top surface of the bracket body (13) and also detachable via the sliding mechanism to release the feeding device (100). Referring to Figure 9B, the excluder (3) is attached to the bottom cap lock (15) by spinning the excluder (3) at clockwise direction to assemble the hinges (35) at inner surface of excluder (3) and the slots of the bottom cap lock (15). Similarly, the excluder (3) is detached from the bottom cap lock (15) by rotating the excluder (3) at counter clockwise direction to disassemble the slots and hinges (35). More preferably, the slot is an inverted L-slot which require the hinge (35) to slide upward and sideward to lock the excluder (3) to the bottom cap lock (15).

Various modifications to these embodiments are apparent to those skilled in the art from the description and the accompanying drawings. The principles associated with the various embodiments described herein may be applied to other embodiments. Therefore, the description is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown along with the accompanying drawings but is to be providing broadest scope of consistent with the principles and the novel and inventive features disclosed or suggested herein. Accordingly, the invention is anticipated to hold on to all other such alternatives, modifications, and variations that fall within the scope of the present invention and appended claim.

It is to be understood that any prior art publication referred to herein does not constitute an admission that the publication forms part of the common general knowledge in the art.

In the claims which follow and in the preceding description of the invention, except where the context requires otherwise due to express language or necessary implication, the word “comprise” or variations such as “comprises” or “comprising” is used in an inclusive sense, i.e. to specify the presence of the stated features but not to preclude the presence or addition of further features in various embodiments of the invention.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1 . A device (100) for feeding poultry, the device (100) comprising: a top bracket; a feeding body comprising an excluder (3) and a skirt (2); and a feeding pan (5); characterized in that the top bracket comprises a top cap lock (11 ), a bracket body (13) and a bottom cap lock (15); wherein the bracket body (13) comprises recesses for mounting onto a feeding tube (7) and for receiving a shut off means (8) and a sensor (9); wherein the skirt (2) has tabs (21 ) extended from the bottom and the feeding pan (5) has slots (51 ) for receiving the tabs (21 ) for center drop locking and holding the feed; wherein the feeding pan (5) slidably engaged at the bottom of the excluder (3); wherein the device (100) is extendable as the feeding pan (5) slides down when rising and retractable as the feeding pan (5) slides up when placing on ground.

2. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the base of the feeding pan (5) comprises a plurality of holes (52) for drainage.

3. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the excluder (3) having a plurality of fins (31 ) with incline shape extending from the lower part of the excluder (3) dividing the excluder (3) into multiple chambers.

4. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the upper part of the excluder (3) comprises plurality of gripping holes (34) for cleaning.

5. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the excluder (3) further comprises an inner edge (32) at the bottom to prevent feed spillage.

6. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 5, wherein the inner edge (32) forms a Il-curved edge at each chamber of the excluder (3).

7. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the excluder (3) is detachably attached to the bottom cap lock (15) via a sliding mechanism.

8. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the bracket body (13) is detachably attached to the top cap lock (11 ) via a quick release mechanism.

9. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the sensor (9) is a feed sensor to detect feeding level.

10. The device (100) for feeding poultry as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the feeding pan (5) is a folding pan that is expandable as the feeding pan (5) slides down.