Patent ID: 8430728

Claim:
An apparatus for removing the wings from poultry carcasses moving in series suspended by their legs from an overhead conveyor with their breasts facing substantially in the direction of movement, the apparatus having an upstream end for receiving carcasses, a downstream end, and a processing path defined between the upstream and downstream ends, the apparatus comprising: a support frame; a mouth at the upstream end of the apparatus configured to receive and align the carcasses for processing; a pair of wing slots defined downstream of the mouth and configured to capture the wings of carcasses, the wing slots diverging outwardly away from the processing path in the downstream direction to pull captured wings away from their carcasses as the carcasses progress along the processing path and thereby dislocate and separate the shoulder joints of the carcasses and pull a portion of breast meat outwardly from the breasts of the carcass; a pair of cutting blades downstream of the wing slots on either side of the processing path, the cutting blades being positioned and oriented to slice off a piece of the breast meat and to slice off the wings at the dislocated shoulder joints to produce wings with a piece of breast meat attached; and surfaces below the processing path for directing the severed wings to a collection location.