A method of mechanically packing a slaughtered bird, including poultry, comprising opening an inlet of an envelope resting on a support, pushing a bird resting with stretched legs on a support into the envelope by exercising a force on the body of the bird, then pressing the legs upwardly to locate the legs in a folded position on both sides of the body and thereafter sealing the envelope.
A device for moving two members (6, 18) the one (6) for pushing the body of a poultry and the other (18) for pushing the legs of the poultry against its body, said two members being connected to two pivot arms (2, 12) by means of links (5, 16) one (12) of said arms being connected to a driving means (15) and said arms being mutually coupled by means of at the one hand a curved control slit (4) and at the other hand a control member (14) protruding into said slit, which is so formed that at the end of the stroke of the directly driven arm (12) the other is almost at a stand still.
When hanging from a conveyor line, cleaned eviscerated, whole poultry is stiff and in a "rigor mortis" type condition. This condition makes it very difficult to compress the stretched-out, stiff bird into a compact, plumb-appearing shape so that it can be readily placed into a bag for further packaging. Disclosed herein is a method and apparatus in which a cam actuated tray picks up the bird while it is hanging from shackles, and pushes the bird towards its legs so that the legs are forcibly flexed and the stiffened condition is overcome. Once this initial flexing takes place the legs can easily be repositioned either manually or on most automatic loading equipment.
A device for packing poultry with means (7) for supporting an opened bag (9) and means (12,13) for pushing a fowl into said bag, a pushing member (12) having a vertical central baffle (26) oriented in the pushing direction to guide the legs of the fowl in order to prevent a twisting movement of the pushed fowl, which otherwise at times could happen and provoke irregularity or even disturb of the pushing operation.
4432188 - Method of stretch bagging - Owned by Star Packaging Corporation (College Park, GA) [*] Notice:The portion of the term of this patent subsequent to August 26, 1997 has been disclaimed.
A method of stretch bagging a poultry carcass within a stretch bag, including supporting a plurality of open-ended stretch bags in superposed array; forcing pressurized air into the top open-ended stretch bag so as to open the bag; axially entering the top bag and tranversely stretching from within while vertically supporting the top bag; stuffing the top bag with an inverted fowl carcass such that the breast plate is uppermost and the legs protrude rearwadly; relaxing transverse stretching and vertical supporting of the top bag, while compressing the fowl within the top bag by interposing restraining force in the path of longitudinal advance and at the forward end of said carcass, such that the leg joints of the carcass are broken and the legs are made to conform to the body of the carcass and remaining bags. The method is distinguished from the prior art in its compressing of the fowl within the bag.
The invention relates to an apparatus and method for loading bone-in meat products into flexible receptacles such as thermoplastic bags. The apparatus comprises a bag loading table having a hopper and bag holder comprising metal rods such that the bone-in product does not contact the bag during loading and thereby eliminates bag failure caused by bone damage.
