Patent ID: 11937610
Assignee: MIDWAY MACHINE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
Field: Other special machines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC A | IPC A

Claim 16:
17. A method of processing poultry for slaughter in a poultry processing facility, said method comprising:
receiving a transport vehicle in a receiving module that defines a transport vehicle drive path;
unloading cages of live poultry from the transport vehicle in the receiving module onto a plurality of shuttle conveyors disposed on one side of said drive path, using a plurality of poultry cage pushing apparatuses disposed on an opposite side of the drive path;
conveying the cages of live poultry from the receiving module to a poultry stunning system on the plurality of shuttle conveyors;
irreversibly stunning the live poultry animals in the conveyed cages inside the poultry stunning system;
conveying the cages of stunned poultry from the poultry stunning system to a stunned poultry hanging station;
retrieving stunned poultry animals from the conveyed cages at a poultry hanging area of the stunned poultry hanging station;
transferring the retrieved stunned poultry animals to a slaughter facility for further processing; and
conveying empty cages from the stunned poultry hanging station to a final loading area and loading the empty cages on an at least partially empty transport vehicle for transport out of the poultry processing facility.