GB1321571A - Method of and apparatus for use in slaughtering animals - Google Patents

Abstract

1321571 Processing animal carcases ITT INDUSTRIES Inc (International Telephone & Telegraph Corp) 12 Jan 1972 1446/72 Heading A2U An animal carcase is bled whilst it is suspended by at least one hind leg, and is subsequently inverted to a position with the hindquarters lowermost so that meat tends to drift or settle towards the hindquarters before rigor mortis sets in. As shown, a previously bled, deheaded, eviscerated, and longitudinally split carcase comprises two halves 10, 12 suspended by the hindquarters from a gambrel 40 carried by a hanger 38, which has a lost-motion connection with a roller chain (not shown) by which it is driven along a conveyer rail 14. As the hanger approaches a region where the rail 14 is directed downwardly to cross a pair of rails 22, 24 directed upwardly, the forequarters are attached by cords to hangers 38 on the rails 22, 24 or are engaged by pronged tongs carried by the hangers. These hangers are also driven through lost-motion connections by chains (not shown) but at a higher speed than the hanger on the rail 14 so that the two carcase halves are inverted in the cross-over region, the hind legs being detached from the gambrel during the inversion, and the inverted carcase halves are conveyed by the rails 22, 24 to a cooler or other destination. Another apparatus for reversing carcases comprises a turntable on to which a carcase, suspended by its hind legs, is lowered by a descending portion of a conveyer, the carcase being detached from the conveyer, the turntable rotated through 180‹, and the carcase then being attached by its forequarters to the conveyer to be picked up and removed. Settling of the meat towards the hindquarters may be assisted by subjecting the hangers to repetitive vertical movements, or by using centrifugal force in an arrangement in which the carcases are hung from the smaller end of a truncated conical rotor.