McDonald’s: First in U.S. History to Stop Some Abuses of Chickens, Other Farmed Animals
...and more. On September 6, 2000, PETA declared a 1-year moratorium on the McDonald’s Campaign, as the company agreed to make important, but basic animal welfare improvements. The McDonald’s improvements marked the first time in U.S. history that any large corporation had done anything at all for farmed animals. Furthermore, since the U.S. government refuses to cover birds under the Animal Welfare or Humane Slaughter Acts, before McDonald’s implemented its new standards egg and chicken farmers could do anything to these animals with complete impunity. After McDonald’s began improvements, Dr. Temple Grandin, a renowned farmed animal handling expert who was hired by McDonald’s in 1994, stated that she had seen “more progress in the past six months than in [her] previous 20 years of working on [farmed animal] issues” (BBC News, Oct. 14, 2000). For six years, McDonald’s talked; activist pressure forced the corporation to act. McDonald’s agreed to the following: Audit all cattle, pig, and chicken slaughterhouses, with set standards for stunning efficacy. Set stun “baths” for chickens at a level that kills most of the birds, markedly decreasing the number of animals who are still conscious when their throats are slit or when they go into the scalding tank for feather removal. Require 50 percent more space for laying hens, on average. This improvement means death rates for hens that are a fraction of the standard death rates in battery cages. Stop buying eggs from suppliers that ...