PASTURE-RAISED VS ORGANIC VS FREE RANGE CHICKEN EXPLAINED
Pasture-raised, organic, free range, natural…these are some of the more common claims you’ll find on chicken and chicken eggs in the grocery store.
If you’ve ever wondered what these different labels mean, and whether they actually matter, you’re not alone. I’ve been buying pasture raised chicken and eggs from small farms for three years and I’ve done a lot of research in that time.
It’s safe to say I know quite a bit more about the inner workings of the chicken industry than a regular person usually would. And today I want to share this information with my favorite readers like you, and decipher the chicken labels!
So what is pasture-raised versus organic and free range chicken? Is one more humane than the other? What about vegetarian-fed and antibiotic-free chicken? Maybe you’ve also wondered if it’s worth paying more for pasture-raised.
HOW CHICKENS ARE RAISED IN FACTORY FARMS
Today about 99% of the chickens being farmed in the United States are within the factory farming system. This is most of the chicken you’ll find at the grocery store.
Factory chicken farming is not a pretty sight.
Picture thousands of chickens inside a crowded dirt-floor barn with feeding stations set up every few feet. The chickens are kept inside for their entire lives. These conventional chicken farms are truly a factory created to quickly grow chickens so they can be slaughtered and made ready for your family’s dinner table.
Conventional factory farms are about as glamorous as they sound, to be honest.
The good news is, there are an increasing number of small farms taking it upon themselves to raise meat chickens (aka broiler chickens) in a more natural and humane way.
I’m referring to pasture-raised chicken, and I’ll explain what that means next.
WHAT IS PASTURE-RAISED CHICKEN?
Pasture-raised means the chickens spend their days outside on pasture where they can forage for bugs and grasses. Foraging, pecking and being outside is very natural behavior for a chicken.
Though they spend most of their time on pasture, pasture-raised chickens always have access to supplemental feed, and shelter for protection from predators and poor weather.
Unlike other labels often found on meat, such as “certified organic” and “free range”, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) does not monitor or have labeling guidelines for pasture-raised claims. When you buy pastured chicken you’re making a decision in good faith towards the farm that raised it.
True pasture-raised chicken will have plenty of access to fresh grasses and space to walk around. Dirt lots that have been pecked clean of grass and forage are not pastures…but they are a reality of chicken farming when pasture rotation is not practiced.
WHAT IS PASTURE ROTATION?
Pasture rotation is an important practice when farming pasture-raised animals. Pasture rotation means the animals are rotated to a new fenced off area of pasture every few weeks. This gives the grazed pasture a chance to regenerate while the chickens are foraging elsewhere.
In a pasture rotation set up, the animals are not brought back to an area of pasture until it is restored and the grasses are growing high again. This is the cycle of pasture rotation.
If too many chickens (or any pasture-raised animals) are pastured in the same area month after month, eventually they will eat all the natural vegetation in sight and you’ll be left with a plot of dirt.
Without pasture rotation, chickens rely almost entirely on their supplemental feed, which is typically corn and soy and far less healthy than the wild forage they are evolved to eat.
If you’d like to watch a video of what pasture rotation looks like on a real farm, check out how we move 1000 hens to fresh pasture every day.
Because there isn’t a government body monitoring the pasture-raised label, a couple independent certifiers do exist that will certify chicken as pasture raised. I’ll explain those next.
PASTURE-RAISED CERTIFICATIONS
Real Organic – The Real Organic Project was started by farmers to protect the meaning of organic. If you see meat with the Real Organic seal, it means the meat is USDA certified organic AND the animals were raised on pasture, not in confinement. Unlike other third party certifications, there are no fees for a farm to be part of the Real Organic certification program.
Certified Animal Welfare Approved by AGW – The Certified Animal Welfare labels means the animal was raised humanely on pasture . This is an independent third-party certification and requires an annual inspection by AGW.
Certified Humane® “Pasture Raised” – The Certified Humane® “Pasture Raised” requirement is 1000 birds per 2.5 acres (108 square feet of outdoor space per bird) and the fields must be rotated. The hens must be outdoors year-round, with mobile or fixed housing where the hens can go inside at night to protect themselves from predators, or for up to two weeks out of the year, due only to very inclement weather.
Know that pasture raised does not mean organic. I’ll explain what is organic chicken next.
WHAT IS ORGANIC CHICKEN?
In order for chicken to be labeled as certified organic it must adhere to rules put in place by the USDA. USDA certified organic guidelines for meat require that the animals are fed 100% organic and non-GMO feed and forage, not given growth hormones or antibiotics and have the ability to graze on organic pasture.
As for organic meat, regulations require that animals are raised in living conditions accommodating their natural behaviors (like the ability to graze on pasture), fed 100% organic feed and forage, and not administered antibiotics or hormones.
However, chickens are exempt from the requirement that they graze on pasture. In the words of the USDA, this is because “maintaining vegetation cover is a challenge“.
In other words, organic chicken farms are not required to keep their chickens out on pasture. Instead, organic chicken is supposed to have “access to the outdoors…and direct sunlight” but there are so many loopholes in the regulations that confined chicken is often labeled organic.
I would agree that maintaining vegetation cover is a challenge. But as I covered earlier, it is possible to raise chickens on green pasture when the farm practices pasture rotation.
Pasture rotation does require extra steps and therefore increases the cost of the chicken. Where the average chicken factory is trying to quickly grow cheap chicken for consumers, shortcuts are necessary.
Moving on to what happens when the organic chickens are processed and packaged. It is prohibited to add artificial colors, flavors or preservatives to organic meat. And the meat itself may not be genetically modified (ex. gene deletion, gene doubling). The processing facility must also be inspected by an approved organic certifier.
The aerial photo above shows Chino Valley Ranchers. They farm certified organic eggs laid by “happy chickens” according to their marketing claims. But where are the chickens? Inside those giant barns.
These are not organic chicken farms, these are organic chicken factories.
ORGANIC CHICKEN VS CONVENTIONAL CHICKEN
One of the few things that distinguishes organic chicken from conventional factory farmed chicken is that organic chicken must only be fed an organic diet that is not genetically modified.
The main difference between organic chicken and other chicken is that organic chicken must only be fed organic feed that is non-GMO.The main difference between organic chicken and other chicken is that organic chicken must only be fed organic feed that is non-GMO.
That said, whether the feed is actually organic is another point we can’t have complete confidence in as the case of Randy Constant proves. In 2019 Randy was sentenced to prison for fraud after it was proved that he sold $120 million dollars worth of fake organic grain in the USA between 2010 and 2017. Most of the grain was bought by farmers as animal feed.