As a customer I would consider that false advertisement. Confinement away from natural diet found on range/pasture is the setup you describe as the area you will use will soon be denuded of grass and available insect/worm life. I don't know about other folks but I don't buy free range eggs because the birds have a lot of space to live in, but rather the more natural diet they consume.
I agree.
The definition of range, in this regard is this: An extensive area of open land on which livestock wander and graze.
Then one would have to determine what is "extensive" relative to the size of the animal and the stocking rate being used. If I had 100 chickens on half an acre, I would consider that confined living as soon all the natural graze and forage would be gone and they would just be birds eating from a feeder on a prescribed area of bare soil.
If I had, say, 15 birds on a half acre of really good pasture and forage, I'd say I might still be able to call that free range as long as they were still deriving most of their diet from the pasture.
I would consider a perimeter fence a safety precaution for a range/pasture/grazing area and it all depends on how many animals are inside that fence and how much of a natural diet they could glean there before it could truly be called "range".
I don't consider chickens let out of a run to forage for a few hours free ranged nor do I think a large area that is overstocked is free range either~that's just a super big run/pen. I also don't consider birds in a tractor as having "fresh" pasture or any freedom of movement. The area beneath their feet is depleted of bug life in mere minutes and the grass may or may not be the type they would/could eat and it quickly becomes spoiled from feces and trampling...I don't call that "fresh" beyond a few minutes time.
I guess it's all relative to what a person feels is "free" and "range"....to me, free is coming and going at will and the ability to spread out from the living area into areas that have adequate forage. Range, to me, is a large enough area that can provide the majority of their dietary needs in warmer months and can supplement it even in colder months.
Playing devil's advocate a bit here.
What about if chickens have very large areas to roam, but the environment itself isn't exactly nutrition filled? Where I eventually want to have my chickens, it's all sagebrush and juniper trees. We live in a desert, so pasture isn't exactly common here. So, say I had 10 or so chickens in an acre or so of land like this:
In fact, that's the exact area I want to set up their run. It will be big enough you can't even see the other side of the fence from the coop... but isn't nutrient dense. So could that be considered free range or not, since there's not much there?
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