The lifestyle and methods of executing chickens has been debated for decades. Everyone’s heard about chicks being raised in confined quarters, having to stand all their lives on wires and eating food mixed with their feces. Don’t forget the steroids and antibiotics pumped into the fellows.
Since many consumers aren’t concerned about the health risks of consuming chickens, the issue of their execution is questioned.
PETA argues death by electric immobilization is cruel treatment. To support their cause, Andy Dick wore a Ronald McDonald costume to a PETA protest in Chicago. PETA is seeking for chickens to be killed with a Controlled Atmosphere method that suffocates the already abused chickens so they can lose consciousness prior to dying.
As a spokesperson for the Humane Society International, Kesha, contacted the MacDonald’s corporation in the United States and made the following inquiry:
“Please explain why you won’t listen to your company’s own advisory panel and follow the lead of McDonald’s in Europe by switching to the modern method that would spare chickens killed for McNuggets from having their legs and wings broken, having their throats slashed while they’re still conscious, and being scalded to death in de-feathering tanks.”
Kesha offered to donate some of her money to update their slaughter practices, while pointing out MacDonald’s is in a better financial position to make the change independently.
On a roll, Kesha also questioned the restaurant, Skinner, about its billion dollar investment for improvements, with no money contributed to updating the slaughter practices.
Ryan Gosling approached the US Department of Agriculture and requested a revision in the standards for killing chickens to require the less traumatic method of suffocation. Currently, the approved methods are 15 minutes of choking, strangling, smothering, or burying them alive.
Ryan pointed out, “If dogs and cats were killed in this way, the person committing these acts would be charged with cruelty to animals.”