(NaturalNews) Fast-food giant McDonald's is once again in the media limelight after it was recently revealed that its West Coast egg supplier has been engaged in "significant and serious violations," according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). McDonald's officially ended its relationship with Minnesota-based Sparboe Farms after an undercover investigation exposed severe animal abuse and filthy conditions at the company's Vincent, Iowa, facility.

For years, Sparboe Farms, the fifth-largest factory egg producer in the US, had been the sole supplier of eggs for all McDonald's restaurants west of the Mississippi River. But after undercover video captured by Mercy for Animals, a Chicago-based animal rights group, went viral, the fast-food chain officially dumped Sparboe as its supplier and issued a public statement about its decision that questioned "the management of Sparboe facilities."

Captured video footage shows factory workers aggressively grabbing chickens by their necks and slamming them in and out of cages, for instance, which is a serious abuse violation. It also shows seemingly endless rows of chicken "battery cages," where chickens are packed densely in stacked rows of inhumane cages. Chickens that live in such conditions often wallow in their own feces, and some get caught in cage wiring which results in their death.

You can watch some of this disturbing footage at the following link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mcdon...

The FDA reportedly issued a company-wide warning letter to Sparboe Farms, which operates a number of other factory hen houses in the Midwest, decrying these and other violations. The agency also cited the company for at least 13 violations of its new federal egg rule, which was enacted following the massive egg recall saga from last year (http://www.naturalnews.com/029539_s...).

Corporate retailer Target, which had also sold Sparboe Farms eggs at its Super Target stores, recently pulled all the company's eggs from store shelves following the release of the damaging footage. Like McDonald's, Target expressed surprise at the findings, and took the position that it was unaware of the "unacceptable conditions in the company's egg laying facilities."

Neither McDonald's nor Target has indicated who they will choose as their new egg suppliers. But because of the nature of their business models, both companies will likely just choose other factory egg suppliers that utilize many of the same inhumane and filthy chicken raising methods -- in other words, consumers can expect more of the same.

Sources for this article include:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mcdon...

http://www.naturalnews.com/z034220_McDonalds_eggs.html