Evaluation of ratite skinning force in order to fix plant and mechanical solutions.

The skin is the most requested product of ratite slaughter and 'first-rate' ratite's skin has a high economic market. Ostrich hide is tanned in South Africa and sold all over the world. Besides, the ostrich meat is considered a niche production in the marketplace, thus allowing for another pro t for the ostrich breeding. Theorical analysis of skinning process has been carried out, and an automatic measurement system has been designed to record the drawing-force on the animal's body during skinning tests. The aim of this study was to indentify the best animal position and provide values of drawing-force in order to design a speci c machine for ostrich skinning. Experimental results partially con rm the proposed analysis. They point out that the angle of inclination of drawing-force with back-line mostly in uences the value of drawing-force and that this in uence tends to increase as the angle is near to 90 degrees or exceeds this limit. In any case, the applied drawing-force must not exceed 350.0 daN. Therefore, with respect to their anatomy structure and the tensile strenght of the hide, ostrich skinning should be done with vertical-drawing machines and the animal should be suspended by its wings at the rail. In case of low working capacity (8-10 heads per hour), given the di coulties highlighted during the experiments run in this study, the animal should be skinned suspended by the legs.