All right: a serious question. I thought the whole idea of “free range” chickens was that the birds are not confined to small cages. But how tightly are they confined? Are small cages replaced by small enclosures? How much space per bird? How many birds per enclosure? For so many chickens to be killed in a fire, they must have been trapped in buildings — so does “free range” mean a million chickens roaming “freely” in a big (and hopefully well ventilated) shed?
Link:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/healthy-tips/2019/08/pasture-raised-eggs
Egg Terminology
Let’s start with the basics. You can find caged, cage-free and free-range on store shelves and here’s a rundown of those terms.
Caged Eggs: About 90% of eggs in the U.S. come from caged hens. The birds are confined to cages for their egg-laying lives and are given 67 square inches each. They eat a corn or soy diet.
Cage-Free Eggs: These birds have more room than caged hens, as they are each provided with less than 1 square foot. They are confined to the barns and eat a diet of corn or soy.
Free-Range Eggs: These hens are allotted less than 2 square feet per hen which is more than caged and cage-free hens, but don’t go outdoors too often. They are usually fed a corn or soy based diet.
So What Is Pasture-Raised?
These hens are allotted at least 108 square feet per hen. They eat a combination of carefully balanced supplemental feed and whatever they can find in the dirt when they go outdoors including grass, worms and bugs. They are able to leave the barns early in the morning and are called back before nightfall.
Free Range implies something it’s not. Actual Free Range would be the 15 or so chickens my grandparents had on their four-acre property, where the chickens were set free every morning to forage about for bugs, worms, lizards, etc. Everybody came home as sundown to roost, and to lay the best eggs I’ve ever tasted.
Free Range implies something it’s not. Actual Free Range would be the 15 or so chickens my grandparents had on their four-acre property, where the chickens were set free every morning to forage about for bugs, worms, lizards, etc. Everybody came home as sundown to roost, and to lay the best eggs I’ve ever tasted.
You’re thinking pasture raised. The free range means they aren’t in a small cage.