Free Range Chicken Meaning Uk

Free range chickens are provided varying degrees of shelter based on producer preference and conventional chickens live in large open structures called growout houses where they are free to walk around and commune with other chickens.

Free range chicken meaning uk.

When shopping for chicken one label that can often confuse consumers is free range chicken. In poultry keeping free range is widely confused with yarding which means keeping poultry in fenced yards yarding as well as floorless portable chicken pens chicken tractors may have some of the benefits of free range livestock but in reality the methods have little in common with the free range method a behavioral definition of free range is perhaps the most useful. Uk free range poultry meat production mainly chicken and also turkeys ducks and geese at christmas accounts for around 3 5 of total uk poultry meat production. Organic poultry meat birds are reared according to strict conditions laid down in eu regulation 889 2008 and have to have daily access to the outdoors for at least.

Producers must demonstrate to the agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside. In free range systems hens are housed to a similar standard as the barn or aviary. What is free range chicken. Free range is a term that refers to a method of animal husbandry where animals are able to roam freely outdoors rather than being confined by an enclosure for 24 hours a day.

In practice this can mean the chickens live most of their lives outdoors retreating to their coop only when weather or other factors require them to do so or it can mean the chickens spend all their time in cramped indoor pens that have a small door opened to the outside for just a few. The rspca states that chickens must have a defined amount of space no more than 13 birds a square metre be 56 days old before they are. For chickens to be free range the birds must be allowed access to the outside according to the usda. But allowing access doesn t mean much.

In practice most chickens stay close to water and feed which is usually located inside the chicken house. In the uk free range systems are the most popular of the non cage alternatives accounting for around 44 of all eggs in 2013 whereas barns and organic eggs together accounted for 5. Relating to or produced by farm animals that are allowed to move around outside and are not kept. This article discusses what free range chicken is how it compares to conventionally raised.