1. Field of Disclosure
The present invention relates to a device and a method for driving animals in an oblong corridor section by means of a driving gate, which can be moved from one end of the corridor section to the other.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known to use fully or semi-automatic driving gates to drive animals in a driving corridor, e.g. when slaughter pigs are driven from the pen area of a slaughterhouse to the stunning apparatus. For this purpose a travelling elevating gate can be used, which is a device that runs on rails placed on the topside of the side walls of the driving corridor and has an arrangement to lower a transverse gate into the corridor section between its side walls. A drawback by these gates is that animals, which are situated behind the travelling elevating gate, can become anxious when the travelling elevating gate is returning towards them or over them with the gate elevated.
Group wise stunning of slaughter pigs in CO2 has gained a footing in slaughterhouses in recent years because of the lenient handling of the animals. A flock of animals is driven from the pen area of the slaughterhouse into a corridor in which the flock is divided into groups of a size, which corresponds to the box size of the stunning apparatus. The groups are driven one by one into the boxes of the stunning apparatus. It is essential that the animals remain relatively calm in these processes before they are stunned.