um, I'm not planning on eating them, where did that idea come from?
They are free range so I presume from that, live out doors anyway.
Free range to you and I as to what the commercial people think are two entirely different things. A large barn with a door at one end is what they call free range; or sometimes large cages with a good few in it and the cage door open with the barn door open for a few hours a day.
Thats a VERY biased, ill informed and anti-commercial view there doganjo
I appreciate quite a few in the smallholder/private community are predjudiced towards commercial poultry farming but I believe this is formed from seeing a few instances of bad practice in the media and a lack of knowledge about what really happens on the commercial farms.
I'm sure everyone knows of a horror story from a commercial farm but i've seen far more poorly treated birds kept by individuals than i've ever seen on a commercial farm.
I invited many people onto commercial farms when I was working on them and the great majority were genuinely surprised at how nicely the birds were kept compared to what they had imagined it would be like.
So to get back to free range systems here in the UK...
There have never been and never will be any sort of cages used in UK free range commercial poultry production.
Free range birds MUST have continuous daytime access to their outside areas, not just a "few hours a day"
ie when its dark the doors are closed, when its light they are open, chickens just don't get any better outdoor access than that
The housing set up is the same as the barn system, there is not just one door at one end of it, there are multiple pop holes along the length of the house to allow all the birds nearby access to the outside.
Barn system
The barn system has a series of perches and feeders at different levels. The maximum stocking density is 9 birds per square metre and there must be at least 250cm square of litter area/bird. Perches for the birds must be installed to allow 15 cm of perch per hen. There must be at least 10cm of feeder/bird and at least one drinker/10 birds. There must be one nest for every 7 birds or 1 square metre of nest space for every 120 birds. Water and feeding troughs are raised so that the food is not scattered
Free range
In free-range systems, the birds are housed as described in the barn system above. In addition birds
must have continuous daytime access to open runs which are mainly covered with vegetation and with a maximum stocking density of 2,500 birds per hectare.
What I would like to mention is that having worked on free range systems and being involved in many trials with them that normally only around 20% of the birds ever go outside despite having access readily available.
These birds if placed outside manually will often head straight back inside, they just don't seem to like going outside by choice even in good weather, maybe they are just quite happy having everything they need inside, who knows.
it is very much the case of you can lead a horse to water but you can't make a chicken go outside
I'm quite sure if people had large enough sheds at home with everything available inside they would see the same results.
So SirDoolb in answer to your question I would reckon that even coming from a free range farm there is every chance your birds have never actually been outside
I hope that gives you a bit more impartial view of commercial free range farms.
More reading here.
http://archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/industry/sectors/eggspoultry/faq/marketing.htmhttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69366/pb6490-hens-020130.pdf