Technologies are described herein for an automated chicken sorting conveyor belt system. Conveyor belts that move chicks from a loading area into bins move laterally (or horizontally) as the chicks fill up the bins. This reduces various impact, acceleration, and other forces imparted on the chicks.

The poultry cradle unloading systems and methods described herein provide for the unloading of birds and, in some cases, placement of the birds in a selected location among two or more possible selected locations. The unloading may be accomplished in a manner that promotes safety for the birds by releasing the birds such that they are predisposed to landing in an upright orientation after release from a cradle. The unloading may involve releasing the head before releasing the legs of the bird. The cradle and/or bird retained in the cradle may be oriented such that the bird is held at an angle such that the head of the bird is located forward of the hock joints.

The invention relates to a facility for high-speed processing of newly hatched fowl.

According to the invention, said facility comprises at least one first linear conveyor (10), which defines a conveying axis (11) along which a plurality of processing stations (13) are arranged, at least some of said processing stations (13) being identical so that the fowl of a single first container in motion can receive the same processing by being shared across the various identical processing stations (13), at least each one of said identical processing stations (13) comprising a chute (15) for conveying fowl thus processed to second containers (16), said facility comprising stationary supports for supporting said second containers, which are placed level with a second conveyor (17) located under said first conveyor (10), so that each second container can be moved, when it is full, to said second conveyor (17) in order to be discharged.

This invention, which belongs to the poultry farming sector, refers to equipment to transport birds along a conveyor belt system, and direct then to image capture heads These units are equipped with warm air blowers, warming the birds and causing them, at the same time, to open their wings just as they enter the head, which allows photographs to be taken for analysis. The place where the bird is located moves up and down as a unit, constantly, together with the blowers, which allows several images to be accurately captured. The operating system can then accurately identify individual characteristics, such as possible malformations, absence of feathers at birth, unexpected coloration and, in particular, the sex of each bird.

A system for diverting an object includes air nozzles, a device for positioning a chick on a moving platform, and sensors for determining characteristics of the chick on the moving platform. When the chick is identified as moving down the moving platform, the system determines which path in the processing system the chick should be sorted to. Then air nozzles are configured to divert the chick to the determined path. In this regard, chicks moving through the system are identified, and then air nozzles are activated to blow the chicks to a desired path.