Mira Oberman:McDonald Drops US Egg Supplier Over Animal Cruelty

Fast food giant McDonald's severed ties with one of its American egg suppliers Friday, after a video taken by undercover animal rights activists exposed shocking cruelty to chickens at the farm. The footage showed chicks having the tips of their beaks being burned off by a machine, and then tossed into cages along with images of barely identifiable corpses of birds that were left to rot in cages. It also showed unwanted chicks left to die in plastic bags, birds mangled by the bars of overcrowded cages, and a chicken flapping its wings in distress, as plant workers swung the creature on a rope in a wide circle. There are no federal laws governing the treatment of poultry on US farms, and most states have sweeping exemptions for farmed animals, which allow for abuses to run rampant without prosecution. "Unfortunately, much of the abuse we documented is not only standard, it's legal," Nathan Runkle, director of Mercy for Animals, which obtained the clandestine footage, told AFP. "We've done over a dozen investigations at factory farms from coast to coast," he said. "Every time we've sent an investigator into one of these facilities, they've come out with shocking evidence of abuse and neglect." McDonald's confirmed it had directed its supplier, Cargill, to stop sourcing McDonald eggs from Sparboe, the company at the center of the cruelty video. "The behavior on tape is disturbing, and completely unacceptable," McDonald said in a statement.