One common style of prior art poultry house is the so called post-style poultry house. These post-style poultry houses are quite prevalent and typically were built using posts prior to the wide spread use of structural trusses. A typical post-style poultry house is between about 34 and 40 feet wide and about 300 to 500 feet long. The posts in such a house are usually spaced from one another and are used to support the roof of the poultry house.
While a post-style house as just described is sturdy and long-lasting, in recent years changes in poultry harvesting technology have made this less than an ideal design for continued use. For example, traditionally once the poultry are ready to be harvested from the poultry house and to be taken to a processing plant, they are gathered up and placed in cages for transport. Currently, this often is being done manually by picking up poultry and putting them in the cages. More recently, automatic harvesting equipment is being developed which constitutes a self-propelled vehicle with equipment at the front end thereof for gathering the poultry and placing them in cages. Such machinery can be obstructed in its operation by the posts. As a result, there exists a strong economic incentive for replacing the post-style houses with a clear span-style poultry house.
Unfortunately, to simply knock down existing post-style poultry houses and replace them with new, clear span poultry houses is prohibitively expensive for many poultry farmers. Moreover, it is economically wasteful inasmuch as much of the structure of the post-style poultry house might still be in good shape and should not be demolished and discarded. Accordingly, it can be seen that a need yet remains for a method and apparatus for economically converting post-style poultry houses to clear span poultry houses. It is to the provision of such a method and apparatus that the present invention is primarily directed.