McDonald’s is lovin’ cage-free chickens

McDonald’s buys two billion eggs a year. It’s a huge number. If you laid two billion eggs end to end…you would be a chicken.

But now, after years of pressure from animal rights activists, McDonald’s has announced that by 2025, it will only use eggs from cage-free hens.

I’m pretty sure animal activists don’t eat at McDonalds, but they want to make sure that the rest of us can feel better about breakfast. And in fact, the article on the Wall Street Journal website had me thinking, seriously, about a delicious cage-free McMuffin.

But as I clicked a video included in the report about cage-free hens, I heard this: “Cage-free hens might act more like normal birds but they’re also more likely to get pecked to death by other hens.”

Pecked to death?! You can’t win!

“Yes, more hens dies from pecking or cannibalism,” reporter David Kesmodel adds.

Whoa whoa whoa!

This reminds me of McDonald’s full disclosure campaign about McNuggets a while back. It included videos stating: “This is the only part of the chicken that goes into the chicken McNugget. No Beaks. No feet.”

Please! I just came in for something to eat!

Fortunately, the activists didn’t force McDonald’s to take the next step which would be “locally-sourced free-range” chickens, where they roam around a pasture in back of the restaurant, before one of them hops on the grill and lays the egg directly on your muffin.

By the way, don’t eat your nuggets in front of the free-range chicken. It’s considered rude.