For those little piggies staying home, where home in this case is a pig pen, there’s some good news — McDonald’s has announced they’re going to require their park suppliers to get rid of gestation pens, long decried as cruel by animal-rights groups. Joyful oinks all around!

“There are alternatives that we think are better for the welfare of sows,” Dan Gorsky, McDonald’s senior vice president of North America supply-chain management, said in a statement today, released with the Humane Society of the United States, according to Bloomberg News.

The changeover won’t be immediate, as McD’s is asking their suppliers to submit plans by May as to how they’ll phase out the metal cages eventually. Gestation pens are about 2 feet by 7 feet, which is too small for a full-sized sow to turn around. The Humane Society says pigs in those types of pens are more likely to contract diseases and fall ill, and suffer psychologically.

McDonald’s is kind of slow to the game, as Chipotle put the kibosh on small cages 11 years ago. They require their suppliers to raise pigs outside or in bigger cages. This is the latest in a spate of recent attempts by McDonald’s to polish up their image, including the announcement that they won’t use pink slime in food anymore.

McDonald’s to Phase Out Pig-Cruel Pens [Bloomberg]

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