I read, with some amusement, egg packages that scream out "Free Range, Vegetarian Diet". They might want to poll the various insects, reptiles, and mice in the area as to whether or not they end up as part of a chicken's meal during "Free Range" foraging....I know my chickens will eat anything they can get in their beaks...
A lot of the terms that are purported to be improvements on battery cages actually lead to significantly higher rates of injuries, and disease for the birds. There are tradeoffs in every system, and people often want the poultry industry to make huge changes without understanding what those tradeoffs actually are.
As a "city folk" who has left Silicon Valley to live in a rural setting, I find your response to my statement a wee bit over sensitive. I visit this site because I am new to raising chickens, and my ignorance of the matter has been alleviated due to the knowledge base demonstrated here. I apologize if I offended anyone with that statement, but there are people who have never visited a farm, ranch, or even gone beyond the concreted confines of a city environment. When my next door neighbor commented on that fact that we won't get eggs because we don't have a rooster....anecdotal, perhaps.
