PETA Imposes One-Year Moratorium on McDonald's Campaign

Campaign Nets Massive Victory for Chickens!

After 11 months of PETA's intensive campaign against McDonald's, which has included more than 400 demonstrations in 23 countries and high-profile graphic ads and billboards, McDonald's has agreed to make the following major improvements in the lives of chickens raised for its restaurants. Because of these significant developments, PETA has been compelled to reconsider its campaign against McDonald's and has concluded that it will give McDonald's a break for one year to allow the company to concentrate on taking further steps.

What McDonald's is now doing:

• Exploring the "feasibility" of buying only from suppliers who raise sows in less cruel conditions (currently, pregnant pigs are confined in concrete stalls so cramped that they cannot turn around).
• Buying chicken flesh and eggs only from suppliers that don't debeak chickens.
• Ceasing to buy eggs from suppliers that give hens less than 72 square inches of space per bird.
• Ceasing to buy eggs from suppliers that withhold food and water in order to increase egg production (a process known as forced-molting).
• Instituting more-humane catching methods for chickens; offering financial incentives to employees who handle the birds carefully and don't break any bones.
• Initiating audits of slaughterhouses, and for the first time ever, cutting off several suppliers that are out of compliance with humane slaughter guidelines.

These improvements are significant steps forward and affect the lives of millions of animals. Sadly, no other major buyer or producer seems to have taken any of these steps. However, much more must be done.

Here's what PETA is asking McDonald's to do next:

1) Phase out purchases from farms that confine sows to stalls.
In the U.K., McDonald's was a leader on this issue, refusing to purchase from farms that used stalls even before they were outlawed by the government.

2) Phase out purchases from suppliers that raise hens in battery cages.
Let's look at the U.K. again: The McDonald's U.K. representative, Mr. Mike Love, agrees that battery cages are cruel to animals and tells us that McDonald's in Britain phased out battery cages before the U.K. outlawed them. If McDonald's can do it there, McDonald's can do it here.

3) Sell only chickens raised truly free-roaming.
Intensively reared chickens are cruelly crammed into crowded warehouses with tens of thousands of other birds where they have less space per bird than a standard sheet of paper (.55 square feet). Cutting a hole in the side of currently used warehouses, as many "free-range" companies do, does not constitute free-roaming. There needs to be a nesting area, a sunning area, shelter from inclement weather, and food and fresh water spread out far enough so that birds do not have to fight each other to eat and the weak do not go without.

4) Relieve chronic leg pain in broiler chickens by requiring that its suppliers stop breeding animals for weight.
Currently, chickens are at full slaughter weight in less than two months. These birds suffer chronic leg pain and bone cracks as their upper bodies are forced to grow so quickly that their legs cannot hold their weight.

5) Require that slaughterhouses effectively stun chickens before slaughter.
To do this, steps must be taken to ensure that every chicken's head passes through the stun bath, and power to these stun baths should be set at a level that renders chickens insensible to pain. Right now, power in the baths is set at a level that immobilizes chickens but does not render them unconscious. Thus, chickens who are still alive after their throats are slit enter the scalding tank for feather removal still conscious and are scalded to death.

6) Revise the standards for "Beef and Pork Handling Practices" to meet the Humane Slaughter Act's 100 percent stunning efficacy requirement for cows and pigs.
McDonald's current goal of 95 percent (cows) and 99 percent (pigs) stunning efficacy is in violation of federal law. Hiring a second stunner on the "kill floor" and slowing down the slaughter lines should be required.

7) Require suppliers to immediately and humanely dispatch any animals who arrive at the slaughterhouse unable to walk, with broken limbs, or in severe pain (frozen, suffering from heat stroke, etc.).
These animals should not be dragged or forced to walk to the kill floor, nor should they be left in "dead piles."

8) Make sure every slaughterhouse is inspected and increase the number of and conduct only unannounced audits.
Many of McDonald's slaughterhouses can't even pass pre-announced audits at a level of performance below legal standards. McDonald's current audit practices require a slaughterhouse that passes an inspection to be inspected for, at the very most, one hour in an entire year.

What You Can Do to Help

Jack Greenberg, CEO
McDonald's Corporation
1 Kroc Dr.
Oak Brook, IL 60523
Tel.: 630-623-6198

2. Please also write to the following fast-food and grocery store chains and ask them to meet or exceed McDonald's standards. Write to:

Chuck Rawley, CEO
KFC, Inc.
1441 Gardiner Ln.
Louisville, KY 40213
Tel.: 502-874-8300

Truett Cathy, CEO
Chick-fil-A, Inc.
5200 Buffington Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30349
Tel.: 800-232-2677

Joseph A. Pichler, CEO
The Kroger Co.
1014 Vine St.
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Tel.: 513-762-4000

Gary Michael, CEO
Albertson's
P.O. Box 20
Boise, ID 83726
Tel.: 208-395-6200

Steven Burd, CEO
Safeway Stores
5918 Stoneridge Mall Rd.
Pleasanton, CA 94588-3229
Tel.: 925-467-3000