US3499674A - Poultry cage door and latch - Google Patents

Description

w. R. voRAN ETAL POULTRYDAGE DOORiAND LATCH Filed-Dec. 22, 1967 March 10, 1970 INVENTOR' a Wm M W a WW W 2 4 FIG. 5

United States Patent Oflice 3,499,674 Patented Mar. 10, 1970 3,499,674 POULTRY CAGE DOOR AND LATCH Willis R. Voran, Zeeland, Mich., and Harvey Z.

Burkholder, Ephrata, Pa., assignors, by mesne assignments, to US. Industries, Inc., New York, N.Y., a corporation of Delaware Filed Dec. 22, 1967, Ser. No. 692,924 Int. Cl. Ec 19/06; A01k 31/00; E05d 11/10 US. Cl. 292-87 14 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE An improved door and latch for poultry cages, in which the latch comprises a strip of resiliently bendable material forming a leaf spring. This member normally engages a structure on the door in a hooking manner, to positively prevent the door from being swung open. Upon resilient flexure of the spring member, the door is released and may be swung open, but when the leaf spring latch is released while the door is in an open position, an angularly offset tip of the leaf spring comes into contact with the door, such that the spring force of the flexed latch member acts to hold the door in its open position. From this position the door may be closed by simply pulling it against the resiliently flexed latch member, which initially causes further flexing of the latch and finally results in a return of the door and latch to a locking engagement, from which the door cannot be reopened until the latch is once again flexed.

BACKGROUND The raising of poultry by confining small numbers within relatively small-area cage structures is becoming increasingly popular in recent times, since it appears that many economic advantages inherent in this type of operation. In fact, confinement cages are used both in the raising of chickens and other poultry to their adult sizes and in the housing of laying fowls for egg-production purposes. Consequently, many structural innovations and improvements in cage constructions have taken place in recent years, since increasingly great attention is being paid to such constructions and to certain problems and limitations which previously did not assume the importance that they now do.

'One particular area of trouble and difliculty in poultry cage constructions is in the form of door which is used to afford access into the interior of the cage, and in the locking or latching means by which the door is held closed. The basic problems are to provide a door which will reliably remain closed in service so that the birds cannot escape from the cages and so that predatory creatures cannot enter the cages from outside them; at the same time, such doors must be easy to open for those whose duty is to care for the birds within, particularly since one or both of the hands of such persons may often be required for other purposes, as to hold equipment or the like. Further, it is veiy annoying for such persons to have to hold the door open all the while they are reaching inside the cages. However, many of the latching means employed heretofore were of a predominantly old and wellknown character, and as a consequence, the basic problem has remained unresolved.

SUMMARY The present invention provides a new form of poultry cage door and latch arrangement, whose operation very effectively resolves the deficiencies associated with past types of equipment. A structurally simple latch means is provided which is secured to the cage in a very effective but uncomplicated way requiring no tools, little effort, and

a minimum of parts, and which engages the door in either of two ways, one of which prevents the door from being opened and the other of which holds the door open once it has intensionally been moved to an open position. This engagement of the latch member with the door occurs as a result of the unique shape of the latch member, which defines two integral door-engaging portions. The restraining of the door in its open position is accomplished through the self-biasing characteristics of the resilient latch member itself, and this restraining force may readily be overcome by a relatively slight amount of deliberate manual effort exerted upon the door to close it, during closure of which the latch member is returned to an interlocking engagement with the door, such that when the door is closed it cannot be reopened until the latch is manually actuated.

DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a fragmentary perspective view showing a portion of a typical poultry cage having the improved door and latch of the invention installed thereupon;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged perspective view of the latch member alone;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the preferred mounting means for the latch member;

FIG. 4 is an enlarged, fragmentary elevation in central section showing the latch in its locking position; and

FIG. 5 is an enlarged, fragmentary elevation in central section showing the latch in its door-restraining position.

PREFERRED EMBODIMENT In FIG. 1, three mutually perpendicular cage wall portions 10, 12, and 14 are illustrated as exemplifying the typical front, top, and side portions, respectively, of a conventional poultry cage formed of interconnected wire rods providing a walled enclosure of openwork, whose general nature is well known in the art. The front portion 10 of such cage defines an access opening 16 forming a doorway into the interior of the cage. As illustrated, the boundaries of this doorway comprise a pair of spaced vertical cage-forming rods 18 and 20 and a pair of spaced horizontal rods 22 and 24, the latter of which defines the upper front edge or corner of the cage.

Mounted in the doorway 16 is a door 26, preferably formed of interconnected rods of the same type which form the cage iself. The door 26 is mounted in a pivotally swingable manner to the cage by suspending the upper corner extremities of the door to the front corner rod 24 of the cage, preferably by a pair of wire or other such ring elements 28. These rings hold the door in place across the doorway while permitting the door to be pivoted about the front corner rod 24 of the cage from the generally vertical position illustrated, in which the door is closed and blocks the doorway, to a generally horizontal position, in which the door approaches parallelism with the top portion 12 of the cage and occupies an open position with respect to the doorway. As illustrated, the door 26 is preferably longer than the vertical extent of the doorway 16, and is mounted within the doorway such that the lower extremity of the door extends beneath the lower horizontal cage-forming rod 22, so that the door cannot be swung outwardly away from the cage and must, in order to be opened, be swung inwardly and upwardly, toward the top of the cage. Further, the upper central portion of the door 26 extends vertically upward beyond the points near its corners at which the door is attached to the cage, to form a latch-engaging cross-bar portion 30 which is located somewhat above the level of the top cage portion 12.

The latching means 32 of the invention includes basically a latch member 34 which is mounted to the top portion 12 of the cage, preferably by a clip member 36.

Latch member 34 (FIGS. 1 and 2) comprises a resilient spring-like strip of stainles steel or like metal which may be relatively thin and which functionally operates in the manner of a leaf spring. At its forward end, the latch member has a locking portion 34a comprising a segment of the latch strip which is oifset from the primary planar major portions thereof and which extends generally perpendicular thereto but preferably at a slightly acute angle with respect to the primary plane of this member, as illustrated (FIG. 2). The forward tip of the latch member defines a restraining portion 3412, which extends forwardly once again from the locking portion 34a thereof, at a slightly obtuse angle to the latter. The rearward extremities 340 of latch member 34 preferably are offset downwardly at least slightly from the nominal plane of this member (for example, at a small acute angle of approximately ten degrees thereto) to provide an angular bend in the latch member which is at least partially straightened by placing the clip 36 seen in FIG. 1 into its mounted position. This operates to place a predetermined initial stress upon the latch which causes it to resiliently urge its locking portion 34a downwardly at all times against the top of the latch-engagement structure 30 at the top of the door 26. Also, the rearward-most extremity 34d of the latch member is bent downwardly to extend substantially normal to the portion 340 just noted, to form a hooking portion used in mounting the latch member, in a manner described below.

The mounting of the latch member 34 to the top portion 12 of the cage is preferably accomplished by a clip 36 having the configuration seen in FIG. 3. In essence, this is a rectangularly corrugated strap of metal or the likehaving a pair of spaced, coplanar side portions 36a and 36b. Each such side portion has a generally perpendicular vertically-extending side lip 38, and the coplanar portions 36a and 36b are separated by a vertically offset center segment 360. In the mounting of the latch member 34, the central portion 36c of clip 36 fits over the latch just ahead of its offset rearward portion 340 (FIGS. 1 and 4), with the aforementioned downwardly-offset rearward extremity 34d of the latch hooking over the first rib 12a of the top portion 12 of the cage, located behind and parallel to the rod 24 which forms the upper forward corner of the cage. The coplanar side portions 36a and 36b of the clip each fit beneath one of a pair of spaced ribs 12b and 12c of the top portion of the cage which lie perpendicular to ribs 12a and 24, just noted. This arrangement creates an initial resilient bending of latch 34 which partially straightens its offset portion 3 10, thereby firmly holding both latch and clip in the mounted position illustrated.

The operation of the present door and latch for cages is readily understood by reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. In the locked position of the door (FIGS. 1 and 4) the locking portion 34a of the latch is hooked directly over the latch-engaging cross bar 30 of the door 26, and the latch member 34 is under at least a small amount of flexure between the door and the rod 12a of the cage over which the rearward-most extremity 34d of the latch member is hooked. Consequently, the door 26 cannot be opened, since to do so its lower extremity must move inwardly within the cage enclosure, pivoting upon the mounting rings 28 and moving the cross-bar 30 outwardly with respect to the cage. This is positively prevented by the presence of the locking portion 34a of the latch.

To open the door, one must lift upwardly on the restraining portion or tip 34b of the latch member, flexing the latch upwardly by bending it further about the clip 36 until the locking portion 34a is raised clear of the cross-bar 36. When this has occurred the door may be swung inwardly to afford axis into the cage, whereupon releasing the latch 34 will, due to the self-biasing or resilient nature of the latch, bring the restraining portion 34b thereof downwardly into contact against the latchengaging structure or cross-bar 30 (FIG. where the resilient bias exerted by the latch member will hold the door in a substantially open position, the extent of which is determined by the mass and balance of the door and the stifiness of the latch member. Thus, the operator may then freely reach into and out of the cage any number of times without having the door swing shut. When the door is desired to be closed once again, however, it is merely grasped and pulled outwardly, whereupon the latch-engaging cross-bar 30 rides upwardly upon the underside of restraining portion 34b, until it moves around the bend separating portion 34b from 34a, whereupon the door will have been closed and automatically locked once again.

It is entirely conceivable that upon examining the foregoing disclosure, those skilled in the art may devise embodiments of the concept involved which differ somewhat from the embodiment shown and described herein, or may make various changes in structural details to the present embodiment. Consequently, all such changed embodiments or variations in structure as utilize the concepts of the invention and clearly incorporate the spirit thereof are to be considered as within the scope of the claims appended herebelow, unless these claims by their language specifically state otherwise.

We claim:

1. In a poultry cage construction of the type comprising a walled enclosure having a doorway for access thereinto, the improvement comprising: a door mounted across said doorway for swinging movement between an open and a closed position with respect thereto; a resiliently biased latching means mounted on one of said cage enclosure or door and extending toward the other thereof; said other having a latch-engagement structure; said latching means defining a locking portion for engaging said structure when said door is in a substantially closed position to prevent movement of said door away from such closed position; and removable means for removably mounting said latching means on one of said enclosure or door and for biasing said latching means so as to maintain said locking portion engagement, said latching means being movable against its resilient biasing thereby moving its said locking portion out of engagement with said engagement structure so as to allow said door to be moved toward an open position.

2. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 1, wherein said latching means comprises a resiliently flexible latch member.

3. In a poultry cage construction of the type comprising a walled enclosure having a doorway for access thereinto, the improvement comprising: a door mounted across said doorway for swinging movement between an open and a closed position with respect thereto; a resiliently biased latch means mounted on one of said cage enclosure or door and extending toward the other thereof; said other having a latch-engagement structure; said latch means defining a locking portion for engaging said structure when said door is in a substantially closed position to prevent movement of said door away from such closed position; said latch means normally being biased to maintain said locking portion engagement but upon being moved against its resilient biasing moving its said locking portion out of engagement with said engagement structure, to thereby allow said door to be moved toward an open position; said latch means further defining a restraining portion arranged to engage said latch-engagement structure when said door is in at least a partially open position, to thereby restrain said door from movement away from that position.

4. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 3, wherein said latch means comprises a self-biasing resiliently flexible latch member.

5. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 4, wherein said latch member is resiliently flexed when its said restraining portion engages said structure, such flexure producing a biasing force which acts to restrain said door.

6. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 5, wherein said latch member is a leaf spring element.

7. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 6, wherein said leaf spring element is shaped to define both said locking portion and said restraining portion.

8. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 7, wherein said locking portion comprises a hooking extremity which engages said engagement structure by hooking over the same.

9. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 8, wherein said engagement structure comprises a peripheral portion of said door and said latch member is mounted on said cage enclosure.

10. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 9, wherein said latch member leaf spring element comprises a single elongated strip of resiliently benda'ble material.

11. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 10, wherein said strip is anchored on said cage at one end and said locking and restraining portions are located near the other end thereof.

12. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 11, wherein said restraining portion comprises an end portion of said strip olfset from the major part thereof and extending at an angle thereto.

13. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 11, wherein said one end of said strip rests against said cage and said other end thereof rests against said structure, said strip being anchored to said cage by at least light flexure of the strip between said ends thereof.

14. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 13, further including an anchoring clip means located at least in part' between the strip and the cage, for producing said flexure of said strip.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,152,823 10/ 1964 Batterson 292-87 J. KARL BELL, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 49-394; 119-17

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