A mechanized method for shackling and handling live poultry is based on mechanically gathering the live fowl on foot at the farm and conveying successive groups of the gathered fowl into shackles in which the live fowl are transported from the farm to the processing plant. At the processing plant, the shackles containing respective groups of fowl are adapted to be releasably supported on the processing conveyor for suspending the fowl during processing. The method for handling live poultry can also be employed with transport vehicles which deliver poultry to the processing plant loose and on foot within the confines of the transport vehicle. In this embodiment, the live poultry are mechanically grouped and conveyed directly from the transport vehicle to the shackles and the loaded shackles with the live fowl are then transferred directly to the plant processing conveyor for processing.
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