Improvements in or relating to an apparatus for cutting through the ankle joint of a leg of the carcass of a bird suspended by the foot of this leg, said apparatus forming part of an installation for processing slaughtered poultry

摘要

1,080,608. Removing feet from bird carcasses. GEBR. STORK & CO.'S APPARATENFABRIEK N.V. Dec. 3, 1965 [Dec. 15, 1964], No. 51499/65. Heading A2U. In apparatus for removing feet from the carcasses of birds, particularly externally cleaned or plucked poultry, a carcass 17 is. suspended, by the foot of one of its legs 16, from a shackle 15 depending from an overhead, travelling; endless conveyer 14, andthetibia portion of the leg is brought between the periphery of a rotating disc 3, provided with recesses 4, and one flight of a flexible, endless belt 6, Fig. 2 (not shown) travelling around a wheel 8 and another wheel. The said flight co-operates with the disc 3, along substantially one quarter of its circumference, and holds said tibia portion of the leg, in a recss 4, against a cylindrical flange 13 depending from. the disc 3. The ankle joint of said leg is thus carried between a rotating wheel 10, having upwardly chamfered peripheral teeth, and a rotating disc 11, bevelled around its lower periphery, so that the ankle joint is broken and its ligaments are stretched. The legaments are then cut by a knife 36. The severed foot, including the metatarsus, is released from its shackle 15 and discharged from the apparatus. The footless carcass falls through a discharge shoot 29. The wheel 10 is secured to the top of a shaft 28, on which the wheel 8 is freely mounted. The shaft 28 and a shaft 25, on which the disc 3 is secured, are driven, by reduction drives 23 and 24, from an electric motor 22. The disc 11 is secured to a shaft 12, which is slightly spaced from the shaft 25 on the side away from the belt 6. A roller 20 secured to the disc 11 slidably engages a slot in the disc 3, which thus drives the disc 11, and, through a torsionfree coupling 19, the driving wheel 18 of the overhead conveyer 14.