Free-Range Chickens

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that free-range chickens used for meat have access to the outdoors, but many free-range chickens never spend any time outside because they’ve been bred and drugged to grow so obese that they can hardly move. Washington State University farm expert Terry Swagerty confirms that most free-range chickens never go outside because, he says, “They’re not bred for mobility. They’re bred for hogging down food.”²³ Or as The Seattle Times puts it, “[T]hey’ve been known to plop down and not walk at all.”²⁴ Richard Lobb, spokesperson for the National Chicken Council, explains in a moment of candor, “If you go to a free-range farm and expect to see a bunch of chickens galloping around in pastures, you’re kidding yourself.”²⁵ Some in the chicken industry are conning consumers by labeling these birds free-range when most are deprived of everything that is natural to them and forced to endure the same conditions as chickens in factory farms—including extreme crowding, cruel breeding, and filthy and disease-ridden living conditions.

Free-Range Turkeys

Like free-range chickens, free-range turkeys are generally not treated any better than turkeys raised in factory farms. Birds who are labeled free-range must have access to the outdoors, but access can mean a hole in the shed that goes out to a tiny, fenced-in mud lot. Plus, like chickens, many turkeys who are sold under the free-range label have been bred and drugged to grow so large that walking is painful or impossible.

University of California-Davis poultry scientist Ralph Ernst explains, “These [free-range turkeys] are raised much like the regular turkeys.”²⁶ Another industry insider, turkey farmer Mary Pitman, says, “Consumers can really be fooled. Some farms can qualify for free range, but they raise [turkeys] in the same conditions as industrial farms.”²⁷

A recent investigation into free-range turkey farms found that turkeys on these farms spend nearly all their time in extremely crowded, filthy sheds where the air is so heavy with ammonia that it hurts to breathe, and the birds are bred to grow so obese that they become crippled. The dead are left to rot among the survivors. Learn more about what investigators found and go on a photo-tour of a free-range turkey farm.

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²³ Judith Blake, “Advocates Say Both Chickens and Consumers Benefit With Free Range,” The Seattle Times 26 Aug. 2003.
²⁴ Blake.
²⁵ McGlashan.
²⁶ East Bay Animal Advocates, “Free-Range Turkey Factsheet,” 2004.
²⁷ East Bay Animal Advocates.