Difference Between Free Range & Pasture Raised?

Little Byrd said:

Hi, I was under the impression that free range meant the ducks are allowed outside to forage in a large fenced area, and that pasture raised meant they are on a very large, grassy land that is fenceless where they forage all day.

My ducks are kept in a 12'x7' pen outside most of the time, where they can't forage. Though I do let them out onto my acre of land to forage for a few hours almost every day. So would that be considered free range or pasture raised?

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junebuggena said:

For the poultry raising commercial farms, the labels actually mean very little. All they technically have to do to be able to use either 'label' is to have a small outdoor 'patio' available to the flock. 
For the small flock owner, we tend to consider free range as letting the chickens roam an unfenced area. We generally consider pasture-raised to mean that the flock has near constant access to primarily pasture-type forage.

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lomine said:

Cage-free, free-range, and pastured are marketing terms. Cage-free means they are not confined to cages but they do not have to have access to the outside. Free-range means the birds were allowed outside for at least one hour each day. This term can be used even if their outside area was just a concrete slab. Pastured means the birds had access to pasture/grass. Both free-range and pastured can be used even if the birds were confined by a fence. (I think pasture-raised means they got the majority of their feed from natural sources or it could be another term for pastured. Not totally sure about that.)

In your case you can use all three terms. Though the most accurate would be pastured.

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