NEWSCAGE-FREE EGGS

If Ryan Gosling, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Deschanel, Alicia Silverstone, Maria Menounos, Kristin Bauer, Ed Begley, Jr., Wendie Malick, Bryan Adams and Steve-O all signed and sent you a letter, you'd probably read it very closely. Today, Jim Skinner, CEO of McDonald's, got just such a letter as part of the Mercy for Animals (MFA) campaign to pressure the company to step up and make a difference for chickens suffering for McMuffins and other foods at the restaurant chain.

When MFA broke a shocking undercover investigation into a McDonald's egg supplier last month, the news hit hard everywhere from television to local stores across the United States. Many consumers got their first glimpse into a factory farming system where animals are often crammed into cages so small they can hardly spread a wing for their entire lives. The video evidence of chicks left to suffocate in plastic bags and live hens being swung around by their legs was not only an education for people, but also a call to action to treat animals more kindly as a society.

More than 1,000 people have joined a campaign on Change.org calling on the University of Delaware, whose mascot is the blue hen, to stop supporting the inhumane treatment of egg-laying hens by switching to cage-free eggs.

Chelsea McFadden, a University of Delaware student, launched the campaign on Change.org after learning that Harvard University switched to 100 percent cage-free eggs in response to another campaign on Change.org, which gained more than 7,000 supporters. University of Delaware is the only large university in the Philadelphia-Baltimore corridor that has not gone cage-free.

“The University of Delaware has already made significant strides in supporting more responsible methods of meeting its needs — such as introducing hybrid buses, instituting single-stream recycling throughout the campus, starting a composting program, and more. Switching from battery-cage eggs to cage-free is another step the University should take on its current path,” said McFadden. “Cage-free eggs are more humane, more environmentally sustainable, and a healthier option for UD students — all things that should be a top priority for the state of Delaware's largest institution of higher-education.”

Nearly 7,000 people have signed on to student Marina Bolotnikova's petition asking Harvard University to switch to 100 percent cage-free eggs.

Although she started the petition on Change.org, Bolotnikova says she can't take credit for how far the movement has come. "The campaign has been successful because the push for cage-free eggs is so basic and so uncontroversial that there is no segment of the student body that does not support it. We have gathered thousands of undergraduate and graduate student signatures, endorsements from many student organizations (including the Undergraduate Council), and nearly 7,000 supporters on Change.org."

Even the university's top administrator is on board. Earlier this week, Bolotnikova and a group of students met with Harvard President Drew Faust. She says President Faust was supportive and "encouraged us to continue working on this important issue and engaging with the Harvard Community."

Dunkin' Donuts has disappointed animal lovers in recent years. Not only did Dunkin' introduce meat-munckins in 2010, but the donut shop has refused to switch to cage-free eggs, despite numerous pleas from animal welfare groups.

It looked like the donut chain might go cage-free back in 2009, after animal protection group Compassion Over Killing exposed the cruelties committed by a factory farm company called Michael Foods, one of the egg suppliers to Dunkin' Donuts. The video includes footage of hens kept in cages without access to food or water, decomposed hens left in cages with live birds, and an employee decapitating a bird.

After the video was released, Dunkin' Donuts stated that they were researching cage-free egg options. Unfortunately, since that limp promise in 2009, animal protection groups haven't heard a peep from Dunkin' Donuts.

No one ever said Harvard students were bird brains.

For years, Harvard students have campaigned for cage-free eggs in the dining halls. And this year the campaign has really taken flight: volunteers gathered over 7,000 signatures on a petition for cage-free eggs by going door-to-door on campus.

Back in 2007, Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) agreed to substitute some eggs from battery-cage farms with cage-free eggs. Unfortunately, the dining halls continue to use battery-cage eggs for recipes and for the liquid eggs used in making omelets and scrambled eggs. And, despite the recent student lobbying, HUDS has elected to keep serving up approximately 650,000 caged-eggs a year.

Editor's Note: We've received great news from The Humane Society of the United States regarding Marriott: "The company has been working on farm animal welfare issues for quite some time and has made positive progress by already switching many of its locations to cage-free eggs." HSUS attended Marriott's shareholder meeting today to commend the company's progress on animal welfare and says they're "confident that [Marriott is] going to make even further inroads soon and help literally thousands of animals."

Thank you, Marriott and Hyatt, for setting an example in the hotel industry, and to HSUS and all the Change.org members who tirelessly fight to give animals a better life.

The best part of staying in a hotel has always been the free continental breakfast.

Now, at all Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, that complimentary breakfast has gotten even better. The hotel chain has recently announced its plan to switch all of the eggs it uses to the kinder, cage-free variety. The Hyatt Hotels serve breakfast to over 10 million guests per year, and serve 2.4 million eggs per year.

The Humane Society of the United States applauded Hyatt for giving chickens a little breathing room: “By switching to exclusively cage-free shell eggs at all of its locations, Hyatt is improving the lives of animals and ensuring a safer food supply."

The livestock industry is nothing if not wily when backed into a corner. Just look at what's happening in Washington state. Washingtonians for Humane Farms have started a signature drive to put an initiative on the state ballot requiring egg producers to provide each egg-laying hen with at least 1.5 square feet of space, enough to allow her to extend her wings fully and turn around freely.

The measure, called the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, has been assigned the number 1130. Even though no one has had the chance to vote on the measure yet, Washington poultry concerns have already responded by introducing their own, watered-down bit of legislation.

A New Zealand man will spend the month of April confined to a small cage measuring 6.25 feet long by 4.25 feet high. He'll sit on a bucket doubling as his toilet and will not leave unless an emergency arises.

Carl Scott is protesting against a proposal made by the Government's National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee that would require farmers to extend battery cages by a few inches per hen. The new cages, called "enriched" cages, were banned in parts of Europe after they were deemed cruel.

Scott strategically set up his cage adjacent to one of New Zealand's largest egg producers and right off of a busy road. He plans to speak about the cages to anyone passing by, write articles and post updates on a Facebook page he created to stir up awareness. A supportive neighbor is allowing Scott to use his electricity via an extension cord.

In 2008, Howard Schultz returned to his former position as the president and CEO of Starbucks in order to help revamp the then-faltering coffee company. Schultz has now written a book about this experience, titled: Onward: How Starbucks Fought For Its Life Without Losing Its Soul.

It seems to me that Schultz is taking a victory lap before his work at Starbucks is done. Starbucks may have a new logo and trans-fat-free baked goods, but the coffee company continues to support one soulless business: factory farms full of battery caged hens.

Starbucks began to phase in cage-free eggs a few years ago, but has yet to commit to a 100 percent cage-free egg policy. This is a major failing on the part of the coffee company.

Whata-good-decision. Texas-based fast food chain Whataburger has announced that it will begin a transition to using cage-free eggs in 2011. The burger chain has nearly 700 restaurants in Texas and ten others scattered around the South and Southwest.

Whataburger made this Texas-sized decision for animal welfare shortly after the Humane Society of the United States investigated a Waelder, Texas egg facility. The undercover investigation revealed a grisly reality: birds trapped without access to food or water, birds with broken legs, multiple chickens crammed into one tiny cage, and eggs covered in blood and feces.

The Waelder egg facility is owned by Cal-Maine Foods, the largest egg producer in the U.S. In 2010, Cal-Maine sold approximately 805 million dozen eggs, (that's 9,660 million individual eggs, for you math whizzes), accounting for 18 percent of egg consumption in the U.S. To produce this massive amount of eggs, Cal-Maine uses approximately 33 million chickens, the largest flock in the country.