Poultry Cage Pivotable Floor Segments for Automated Evacuation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current poultry cage systems for rearing and removing fattening poultry are labor-intensive and costly, with a high risk of animal injury and limited space efficiency, particularly in multi-tier arrangements, due to cumbersome floor designs that either risk injury or require excessive height for efficient evacuation.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of pivotable floor segments that transition from a continuous contact area to a position where animals can fall onto a conveyor device, allowing for safe and efficient removal while maintaining a low overall cage height and enabling thorough cleaning, using actuators for automated operation and a movable lower separating grid segment to prevent escape and facilitate transport.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a foldable floor mat is used to allow animals to fall onto the conveyor device, then evacuation efficiency is improved, but the animals can be directly injured or trapped by the gathering process
Solution Approach 1:
The floor is divided into multiple rigid segments that can be independently pivoted. This segmentation allows the floor to be moved in a controlled manner without creating the harmful gathering forces that injure animals, while still enabling efficient evacuation to the conveyor device.
Solution Approach 2:
The floor segments are made pivotable rather than fixed or fully foldable. This dynamic design allows the floor to transition between a horizontal working position and a tilted evacuation position, providing controlled movement that prevents animal injury while maintaining evacuation efficiency.
2Productivity
If the floor is designed as a rigid plastic grid that can be pulled out sideways, then animals can fall onto the conveyor device, but the actuation is cumbersome and automated operation is difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The rigid plastic grid floor is made pivotable about vertical axes, transforming it from a static structure to a dynamic one. This pivotable design enables easy automated operation through simple actuation mechanisms while maintaining the structural integrity needed for animal removal and conveyor access.
Solution Approach 2:
The complex manual actuation of pulling out rigid floor sections is replaced with a simpler pivot mechanism. This mechanical substitution uses rotational movement about vertical axes instead of lateral translation, dramatically reducing actuation complexity and enabling automated operation.
3Extent of automation
If the floor surface is moved to allow stalling onto the conveyor device, then automated removal is enabled, but the overall height of the cage arrangement must be increased to provide sufficient standing height for animals
Solution Approach 1:
The floor segments are designed to pivot about vertical axes, allowing them to be tilted to evacuation positions without requiring increased overall cage height. This dynamic pivot mechanism enables automated removal while maintaining compact vertical dimensions suitable for multi-tier arrangements.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of moving the floor horizontally or vertically in a way that increases cage height, the floor segments pivot about vertical axes, utilizing rotational movement in a different dimensional sense. This allows the floor to clear the conveyor device for animal passage without increasing the vertical height of the cage structure.
4Ease of repair
If the floor segments are pivoted to allow animal removal, then cleaning access is improved, but the floor structure becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The floor is divided into multiple segments that can be independently pivoted. This segmentation provides excellent cleaning access to both surfaces of each segment while keeping the overall structure relatively simple through modular design, balancing cleaning ease with structural complexity.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a poultry cage arrangement for the raising of fattening poultry, comprising: a poultry cage with a poultry holding space enclosed on all sides by boundary walls, in particular railings, and with a floor area; a conveyor apparatus with a conveyor area, which is arranged under the floor area for conveying the poultry held in the poultry cage from the poultry cage to a loading station. The floor area is designed in such a way that said floor area can be moved from a first position, in which said floor area demarcates the poultry holding space from below and presents a standing surface for poultry found therein, into a second position, in which said floor area allows the poultry located in the poultry holding space to be removed from the coop and placed on the conveyor apparatus by no longer offering any support to the poultry found in the poultry cage. According to the invention, the floor area consists of at least one, preferably several, pivotable floor segment(s) which is/are pivotable between the first and the second position.