Billionaire investor Carl Icahn slams McDonald's over allowing the 'unnecessary suffering' of pregnant pigs in its supply chain

• Billionaire Carl Icahn is calling out McDonald's for allowing suppliers to use gestation crates for pregnant pigs.
• McDonald's first agreed to do away with the practice in 2012, but Icahn said that hasn't come to pass.

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn is pushing McDonald's to end the use of gestation crates for pregnant pigs in its supply chain, according to Bloomberg.

The Golden Arches first agreed to order suppliers to do away with gestation crates, which have been widely criticized as inhumane devices, over a 10 year period in 2012. But now that the decade is up, Icahn has said the company has failed to live up to its goal, and he is threatening to kick off a proxy fight if the status quo continues.

"We're going to fight it as much as we can," Icahn told Bloomberg TV's Erik Schatzker, noting that he's prepared to shake up the company's board of directors if McDonald's does not improve its practices.

McDonald's and Icahn did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Gestation crates, or sow stalls, are small, metal enclosures where pregnant sows are confined. While the pork industry has defended the crates as a necessary measure to boost productivity and prevent the pigs from fighting, animal welfare activists have disagreed.

In a 2013 report, the Humane Society of the United States stated that "pigs are intelligent, social, inquisitive, and capable of learning complex tasks, perceiving time, and anticipating future events.

"They are active and curious animals," the report reads. "Near-immobilization in gestation crates without environmental enrichment or mental stimulation takes a psychological toll and impairs their welfare."

Icahn recently told Bloomberg TV that the crates cause "unnecessary suffering." The billionaire financier became aware of the issue through his daughter Michelle, a vegetarian who has worked with the Humane Society.

This isn't the first time that McDonald's has come under fire on animal welfare grounds. In 2015, the fast food giant ceased working with a Tennessee farm where workers were caught on film stomping on chickens. The company also severed ties with a California slaughterhouse under investigation for animal cruelty in 2012, according to the New York Post.