Free Range Chicken

[Hgrove]

I bought something labelled "free range chicken".  Does it mean anything?  Is it the same as organic?  Does it mean the chickens were kept more humanly?

[Ammy]

It means that the little chickens were able to roam free and weren't kept in tiny cages like 'battery chickens'. So to answer your question they are kept in a more humane condition by getting more stimulation, exercise and therefore their physical and mental happiness is a bit more catered for.

It is not the same as organic, though of course you can get free-range organic chickens. Organic means no unnatural products are used in their production/life ie no injections of protein etc.

[woofgang]

organic also means that they are fed on organic food, kept on land that is managed organically, only given medication when it is needed and if they are medicated, the substance is allowed to leave their systems before slaughter

[trilobite]

You will often see "Free Range" romantically described on supermarket packaging as "from chickens with freedom to roam outdoors". In reality, this flowery language means a deep litter system where the chances of getting to 'roam outdoors' are pretty low. 'Deep Litter' means a large shed with thousands of birds crammed into the open floor space, with a proscribed minimum number of doorways to the outside. Few birds actually get to venture into the great outdoors simply due to the sheer number of bodies packed into the area.

As for 'organic' - you can get organic battery hens aslong as they are fed organic feed and not pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones. 'Organic' per se is not necessarily an indication of animal welfare, though the two genearlly go hand in hand.

Now that the multi-national food corporations are getting on the organic bandwagon, they will aptly demonstrate that in their quest for high volume and low cost, 'organic' and 'better animal welfare standards' are not the same thing.

[FP]

Unfortunately, Tribolite is right.  Perhaps Advertising Standards ought to be tightened up here!

[ursula62]

Actually trilobite, it's apparently worse than that....

In order for chicken to be classified as free range, the chicken (or "hen" - they mince up the male chicks and put them in the battery hen food) has to have lived in that environment for only the last four weeks before slaughter. Prior to that, your "free range chicken" could have been a battery hen.

[trilobite]

Didn't realise the 'four weeks before processing' bit, Ursula.

As for hatchery waste, didn't want to start on that one!

For anyone wondering, the hatcheries (where the millions of ckickens we require for egg production and consumption are incubated and hatched), produce what is matter-of-factly called 'hatchery waste'. This, as you may expect, includes empty eggshells, eggs that failed to hatch, the odd still-born chick. oh, and not forgetting the 50% of chicks that are male and therefore have absolutely no use to the poultry industry whatsoever (discounting the insignificant few required for breeding flocks or those used on photo shoots at Easter time.)
All male chicks are therefore ground up with the rest of the waste and, as Ursula states, used for chicken feed. Some of the lucky (?) ones are even gassed before being fed into the rollers.

[Yinzer]

You should read this book called "Animal Liberation" by Peter Singer. It tells you more about this stuff. Or go looking around on the PETA website
http://www.peta.org/

[Catweazle]

I disagree with trilobite about organic battery hens. Yes, in theory a battery hen could be fed organically but it could not be sold as meeting the animal welfare standards of the various organic organisations such as the Soil Association.