Almost everyone has eaten at McDonalds at least once, but many people don't know about the horrific cruelty that goes into every portion of chicken served under the Golden Arches.

In the slaughterhouses of McDonald's U.S. and Canadian chicken suppliers, birds are dumped out of their transport crates and hung upside-down in metal shackles, which often results in broken bones, extreme bruising, and hemorrhaging. Workers have the opportunity to abuse live birds, and birds have their throats cut while they are still conscious. Many birds are immersed in tanks of scalding-hot water while they are still alive and able to feel pain.

McDonald's has the ability to end these abuses.

There is a less cruel method of chicken slaughter available to McDonald's suppliers called controlled-atmosphere killing, or CAK, and it would cost the corporation nothing to demand that its suppliers use it. CAK would eliminate the worst abuses currently suffered by chickens killed for McDonald's. In fact, a 2005 study about CAK produced by McDonald's concluded that it is far better for animals than the current method of slaughter.

Write to McDonald's now, and demand that it phase in the exclusive use of chickens killed by CAK by requiring that its suppliers switch to this method.