The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 13, 1998
Filed:
Feb. 22, 1996
Herbert D Horton, Nacogdoches, TX (US);
The Taylor Group, Inc., Louisville, MS (US);
Abstract
A cooping apparatus by which a large number of chickens, such as may be found growing within a chicken house, are mechanically transferred into a multi-tiered coop. A conveyor is supported along the length of a boom, and a chicken gathering apparatus is supported from the depending end of the boom for gathering the chickens onto the boom conveyor, which moves then onto an elevated intermediate conveyor system. Overlying the conveyor system is a pivotally mounted set of distribution vanes that uniformly distributes the chickens as they continue to move along the conveyor system towards the receiving end of a transfer divider. The transfer divider divides the chickens into a plurality of horizontal parallel paths, each path leading into the compartments of one tier of a multi-tiered coop that is supported on the rear of the machine. An elevator device sequentially positions the discharge from the transfer divider respective to each of the tiers of the coop being loaded so that the chickens are discharged from the divider, where they move along the horizontal parallel paths, into appropriate compartments of a selected tier of the coop. The loaded and empty coops automatically are moved into a position convenient for a forklift vehicle to engage and remove from the cooping apparatus. A modified apparatus shows among other things a loading conveyor at the loading area and deflectors for successively deflecting the chickens into the various compartments of the various tiers of the chicken coops.