Abstract: A bird is cut up by cutting free the fillets, that is the large portions of breast meat, loosening the wings, dislocating the thighs, and at the end removing as one piece a subassembly comprised of the thighs, the fillets, and the wings. More particularly the fillets are freed in two steps, namely first they are partially from the skeleton starting from the sternum, and then, after the wings have been loosened, the cut is completed. In addition the coracoids are cut between the two stages of fillet-freeing, and the pygostyle is ripped or cut off at the end of the process. The bird to be cut up is fixed on a holder that fits within the thoracic cavity of the bird and remains on this holder through all of above-described treatment steps.

Abstract: An apparatus for separating a soft material such as meat from a hard material such as bone has a generally stationary support and a holder that supports an object comprised of the hard and soft materials stationarily adjacent the support with an interface between the hard and soft material extending to a cutting plane. A chassis is pivotal on the support about a chassis axis transverse to the plane and an outer pulley is pivotal on the chassis remote from the support and generally tangent to the plane. A carriage displaceable on the support transversely of the plane pivotally suports an inner pulley pivotal on the carriage close to the support and spaced along the plane from the outer pulley. One of the pulleys is rotated to advance the chain.