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Concerns about free range chickens
So I generally buy eggs that are "cage free" or "free range" I assumed I was doing something good and eating eggs from humanely treated chickens... I was looking into it when I stumbled upon this site : (this is graphic in a way similar to the movie food inc so if you have a sensitive stomach or don't want to see graphic animal cruelty type pics DO NOT follow the link!)
http://www.upc-online.org/freerange.html
I figure its worth sharing. I'm going to have to buy eggs from places where I can visit the farm!! The idea of the article (for those who dont want to see the pictures) is that "free range" and "cage free" are being treated just as poorly as industrial raised chickens.They still suffer from beak clipping and crowded spaces. The male chicks are killed at the time of hatching in horrific ways such as literally just being thrown away in a trash can.
a few quotes:
"Birds raised for meat may be sold as 'free-range' if they have government certified access to the outdoors. The door may be open for only five minutes and the farm still qualifies as 'free-range.' Apart from the 'open door,' no other criteria such as environmental quality, number of birds, or space per bird, are included in the term 'free-range.' A government official said: 'Places I?ve visited may have just a gravel yard with no alfalfa or other vegetation.' "
"Typically, 2,000 to 20,000 or more hens - each hen having one square foot of living space the size of a sheet of paper - are confined in a shed with little or no access to the outdoors. If the hens can go outside, the exit is often very small, allowing only the closest hens to get out. And the ?range? may be nothing more than a mudyard saturated with manure."
Re: Concerns about free range chickens
When I buy eggs from the grocery store, I only buy Certified Humane. I've read their standards and trust them. Here: http://www.certifiedhumane.org/index.php?page=standards
Do you have any farms around you where you could get your eggs? I buy mine from a woman who raises chickens and I know they're humane because I can see the chickens running around outside every time I'm there.
I assume that Mrs A+H is buying the same eggs I am, from Stiebr Farms (when I can't easily get farm fresh eggs) and I am very pleased with their setup.
I can buy chicken at the farmer's market, and I've seen it on Craigslist from local farms, but I just don't buy chicken. I don't like cooking it anyway.
We started getting locally-farmed, pastured-chicken eggs at the farmers' market and co-op last year. We can easily visit the farm(s) and see just what's going on.
My Clean Eating Blog
Green Living Reading List
This is what we do as well. Any of the egg sellers at your farmer's market who won't let you visit to see their setup are (bad pun alert!) bag eggs. ::snicker::