Free ranging chickens

We’ve been building a chicken coop. Well, we’ve been thinking about building a chicken coop. The plan is to convert an unused shed and then build a ten foot by eight foot cage connected to the coop to allow our chickens the chance to be “free range.”

Eighty square feet of ground might not be what everyone considers free range, I admit. When first thinking about adding chickens to the farm, I envisioned the little guys wandering the property, pecking at whatever ground interested them. I want to be fair to my chickens but I also need to protect my investment in them and protect them from predators, like the hawk that swooped down from the sky on Monday to take out a very large rabbit.

In some countries, including the U.S., the recommended space allowance for laying hens is sixty- to eighty-square inches per hen, barely enough for the hen to turn around and not enough space to allow for comfort movements, such as preening, dust and water bathing, wing flapping and feather ruffling – important to keep the plumage in good condition. Many hens, however, are allowed less space than that. Some large scale egg producers use commercial battery cages for laying hens, the most movement-restrictive production system in use. This is about as far from free range as you can get, but it allows consumers who are price sensitive access to cheap eggs.

I first heard the term “free range” about a decade ago after I stopped into one of those pricey eateries that populate southwest Minneapolis. This one place offered free range chicken in a sandwich. The sandwich cost about two dollars more than the organic peanut butter and jelly or the albacore tuna. (Tuna are naturally free range, I suppose). Anyway, if you had enough money, and you were concerned about the life lived by your lunch before it became lunch, you could enjoy delicious free range chicken sandwiches made fresh daily.

At the time, I didn't give much thought to free range, battery cages, ethics, or the natural food chain. That’s all changed.

In the context of farming, sustainability defines agricultural practices that are ethical, environmentally responsible yet still recognize and allow for the need to turn a profit. In the twenty-first century, sustainability is all the rage. Sustainable farming dictates I give my future chickens room to be chickens, but also recognizes that I have an investment in my chickens that needs to be protected.

So, eighty-square feet of caged range it is. If anyone objects to my use of the term free range for my chickens, so be it. Because when the times comes for one of my chickens to become a meal, it will be me, not the hawk, who enjoys it. And that, dear friends, is sustainable farming.