Patent Application
20130125835
None.
I. Field of the Invention.
The present disclosure relates generally to an apparatus for handling livestock. In particular, the present disclosure is directed to an apparatus to affect the efficient handling of livestock during the data collection thereof and the sorting of same.
II. Description of the Prior Art.
It will be understood and appreciated that as the foregoing description of the present disclosure may be explained as it pertains to the handling of poultry, this description in no way shall be indicative of the limiting of “livestock” thereto.
It is common with some livestock, and certainly with poultry, to be kept in large groups in rather intensive confinement. Such crowding, and its inherent individual competition for limited resources, will typically create a stressful environment. As livestock welfare has a direct correlation with livestock stress, such situations, among others, lead to poor livestock well-being.
Moreover, there is currently a great deal of welfare concern about the handling and transport of poultry. The manual process of using an operative to catch poultry, contain them, transport them, and remove them from their containers only to hang them on shackles at a processing plant has always been a frequent source of stress and injury to the birds, mainly due to the quality of the manual handling. The more automated process of using various conveying apparatus to load poultry from the farm to a transport vehicle, and then unload from the transport vehicle to another farm and/or processing plant, while more advantageous than manual handling, still results is a stressful environment for the poultry.
The proper management of poultry's exposure to stressors can maximize well-being and can have beneficial effects on animal production. This is because as poultry baseline homeostatic mechanisms are challenged and/or altered, the growth, disease resistance, and reproduction of such poultry can be affected. No animal exists free from stress and suffering, let alone a meat producing animal for human consumption. Each animal responds to stress differently. It is the measurement of the physiological reaction to stresses that is an indication of animal wellbeing. For example, individual meat producing animals typically have a small variation from their genetic imprint (less than 10%). However, excessive stressors caused by per se management and environmental irregularities increase the range of individual variation beyond this acceptable genetic variation range. To put it a different way, while poultry well-being is an important humane issue, reducing or eliminating stress in animals prior to slaughter is also a meat quality'issue. In fact, it has been proven that even the last five minutes of life has a direct impact on the quality of the meat. Accordingly, the individual data of each animal provides a forceful tool to determine excessive stress.
Knowing that stress is an important factor in poultry well-being creates the issue of attempting to quantify it. With an inherent tendency in the physiological system of higher animals to maintain internal stability, so-called homeostasis, certain physiological measurements have been relied upon to quantify alternations to homeostasis. For example, such traditional physiological measurements include individual weight, heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, body confirmation, hormone concentrations, blood flow and pressure, oxygen concentrations, etc. Accordingly, the ability to measure such data would be particularly beneficial to the livestock industry.
However, measuring such data has proven to be quite difficult. One such attempt is disclosed in US Patent Publication No. 2009/016234, which is incorporated herein by reference. The data collection station described therein, while able to collect certain data, is nevertheless somewhat lax in its positioning of livestock during data collection, which may affect the accuracy of measurements.
In view of the needs of the industry, as well as the shortcomings of the conventional systems, it is a general object of the present disclosure to provide an apparatus that overcomes the deficiencies of current practices for data collection and sorting of poultry during the live loading and unloading of livestock prior to slaughter.
It is another object of this disclosure to provide a stand-alone apparatus for quantifying poultry well-being that is capable of interfacing with current loading and unloading systems.
Another general object of this disclosure is to provide an apparatus that sorts according to the data collected.
Yet another object of this disclosure is to provide an efficient and transparent animal supply chain, while simultaneously improving animal care.
These and other objects, features and advantages of this disclosure will be clearly understood through a consideration of the following detailed description.
According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, there is provided an apparatus for positioning livestock in order to singulate and collect data thereform. The apparatus includes a singulating transport for feeding livestock into a data collection station comprising body support and cover transports. Once data is collected, the livestock is sorted according to the collected data.
There is also provided a livestock data collection station including a foot transport for feeding individual livestock into the station and a pair of body support transports with a cooperating cover transport for receiving the livestock. The body transports form a “V” under the cover transport to hold the livestock for a data collector.
There is further provided a livestock positioning apparatus for data collection and subsequent sorting including a singulating transport for separating individual livestock from a group of livestock and a data collection station for receiving livestock within body support transports arranged in a “V” and under a cover transport. A data collector then collects individual livestock data which is processed so as to enable a sorting transport to direct the livestock.
The present disclosure will be more fully understood by reference to the following detailed description of one or more preferred embodiments when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer to like parts throughout the views and in which:
The following description of the preferred embodiments is merely exemplary in nature and is in no way intended to limit the disclosure, its application or use.
Turning now to the drawings, an embodiment of the present disclosure provides for a livestock data collection and storing apparatus that has been designed to be utilized as a standalone unit and/or integrated at the end section of a livestock loading and/or unloading system. Whether standalone or interfacing with other systems, the basic features and advantages will be described as they relate to the drawings.
For illustrational purposes, it will be understood that some of the drawings may not show cooperating walls, covers or transport framing. This has been done so as to more clearly describe the interactions amongst the different livestock transporting and data collecting areas of the apparatus. It will be further understood that certain confirming and/or support members may be utilized.
In any event, livestock data collection and storing apparatus 10 of
The data collection aspects of the apparatus 10 will now be more particularly described as they relate to
With the proper adjustments made to accommodate the particular poultry size, the legs, feet and toes 34 as well as the overall underside of the bird are exposed for images to be taken and recorded by cameras and the like. Such a moment video shot can be attained, for example, to detect heat gradients/measurements of the hock/legs/footpad/toes. Such measurements, and in particular compromised measurements, are easily understood by the retail audience. For example, recognizing an above average heat reading in this area would represent perhaps an infection and/or a point of pain or perhaps the morbidity of an animal. Similarly, allowing a full body picture of the poultry will enable, for example, detecting feathering issues as well as other body/feathering abnormalities.
The poultry then exits the data collection area of the apparatus 10 and the sorting conveyor 26 sorts them depending on prescribed criteria. For example, acceptable birds may be placed on a subsequent conveyor until a container unit has been accumulated and then conveyed to a head section of a poultry loading apparatus and loaded on a transport trailer. On the other hand, birds that may be compromised can be sorted onto another conveyor or conveyors where they will be visually inspected for further review and/or conveyed to the loader and subsequently loaded in a separate contained unit and perhaps ear marked as birds with certain physical aspects.
Poultry can be sorted by any number of attributes and virtually any collectable data may be used to sort. For example, assume that the apparatus 10 is being utilized at a processing plant for sorting prior to stun and the average chicken on an arriving transport vehicle weighs 6.15 pounds. The sorting system can be adjusted to displace 4.15 pound chickens (for example) or less into a sort conveyor. Once enough 4.15 pound chickens have been accumulated to achieve a full container unit, the chickens proceed to be conveyed through the loading system and into a container on the trailer.
The apparatus 10 can be utilized to collect data at the farm before initial transport as well as after transport and before processing at a plant. Data collected is then accessible through the entirety of the poultry's journey from farm to consumer. As such, the next destination (and the final destination) will know what is coming (it has) before it is unloaded (consumed). While each individual bird can be tagged (via RFID or otherwise), data can otherwise be assigned by location of the bird (e.g. coop module, container, shackle, package, etc.). An example of such tracking that can be utilized with the present disclosure is found in U.S. Publication No. 2009/0164234 to Sinn et al., incorporated herein by reference.
The interaction between the apparatus 10 and where the poultry is fed from as well as where it is sorted after data collection will now be described with regard to
Turning now to
Before any data can be collected and therefor any sorting according to such collected data, the livestock needs to be positioned to collect the data. Livestock positioning is accomplished via manually controlling the various transport conveyors and/or is automatically controlled via processor 54. In any event, it is the ability to singulate and gap the livestock into a position to collect data that provides one of the advantages of the present disclosure. Once singulated and gapped, it is the unique positioning of the present disclosure that enables the necessary accuracy to the measurements of the data.
More specifically, and turning back to
The apparatus 10 is controlled and data is collected, stored and analyzed through the aid of the controller (processor) 54. More specifically, the data collected can be added to a database and each animal can be analyzed according thereto. For example, the data collected may be utilized within a live animal index which may be comprised of factors obtained as a result of the data. Such factors may include flock mortality, individual weight variation within the flock body temperature, photograph or other factors according to some predetermined directive.
Other data which may be collected would include more precise measurements such as bone structure, blood/oxygen concentrations, enzyme detection, DNA cursors, etc. Whatever data that may be collected, it is first entered into and analyzed by the control unit and processor 54. As previously noted, such data will be associated with a specific animal either by keeping track of the order that the animal has moved through the system or by an individual marking system such as a RFID system.
Through the use of RFID or other individual tracking tools, the relevant information about specific animals will be readily available upon request from the supply chain, retailers and consumers. This may be accomplished in any number of ways. It is envisioned that the collected data may be accessible through the internet, intranet or the like. Alternatively, the data may be transported with the animals on any number of memory devices (i.e. thumb drive, flash, etc.). However the data is transferred, one mission of the present disclosure remains the improvement of the efficiency and the transparency of the animal chain, while improving animal care. In fact, it is the use of the critical control point data that equips the supply chain to measure performance and to substantiate animal state of being.
The foregoing detailed description has been given for clearness of understanding only and no unnecessary limitations should be understood therefrom. Accordingly, while one or more particular embodiments of the disclosure have been shown and described, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the invention if its broader aspects, and, therefore, the aim in the appended claims is to cover all such changes and modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of the present disclosure.
