How to raise free range chickens

These girls look pretty happy, but are they free range?

What are Free Range Chickens?

Free range chickens differ from barn and conventionally farmed poultry, roaming freely for their food outdoors during daylight hours with safe access to an enclosure during darkness.

Although the outdoor areas to roam are usually enclosed for commercial poultry farmers, for many urban dwellers or lifestyle block owners, chickens are often free to roam the property at will.

During the winter season, many people will allow their chickens to free-range in their gardens. Chickens are omnivores and enjoy searching for and eating insects and can assist in controlling pests that may harm garden plants later in the year. The scratching and pecking of the ground also ensure the ground is aerated and loosened.

Chicken farming was traditionally managed using a free range system until the successful introduction of commercial scale confinement (or intensive farming) of poultry began in 1915. In the early 1930's, the introduction of cabinet incubators (which allows hatching at the same time of large numbers of eggs) further enabled the development of large scale confinement operations keeping chickens indoors throughout their productive life.

Free Range Eggs

Although caged poultry supply most of New Zealand's eggs, free-range farms are estimated to provide the remaining 9-10% of the market. Free range farms typically house between 5,000-10,000 birds with larger operations reaching up to 60,000 and smaller farms have as few as 3,000 chickens.

Free range birds have indoor (sometimes mobile) sheds fitted with nest boxes and perches to provide a warm, comfortable and safe environment away from predators. The chickens usually have a paddock or similar outdoor terrain where amongst natural vegetation they can forage and shelter during the day.

If chickens free-range for most of the day, eggs will often be laid outdoors rather than in nest boxes. To combat this issue nest boxes are sometimes provided outside also. And chickens are often keep indoors for the first weeks to accustom them to laying in nest boxes - although this cannot be guaranteed.

Although setting up a small scale home free-ranging chicken flock is fairly simple, (with early missionaries being the first recorded poultry farmers in New Zealand), commercial free range and (especially) organic chicken farming poses more of a costly challenge.

New Zealand free range and organic chickens are not permitted to have growth promoting hormones or antibiotics, nor is pesticide use permitted on paddocks where chickens roam. While these restrictions ensure a healthier bird and environment, without the use of prophylactic antibiotics to combat disease, the average mortality rate can be as high as 10% of the flock compared to 5% for conventional operations. Sourcing hardy commercial bird varieties to combat the higher mortality rate can also be a challenge. New Zealand's bio security restrictions severely limit the importation of new or rare breeds to prevent pathogen outbreaks destroying the domestic poultry industry.

And finally, effective organic feed mix is very costly and difficult to source for optimal health and wellbeing. Organic soybeans varieties suited to the New Zealand climate are yet to be developed that can provide the birds with the protein required for rapid growth.

To learn more about commercial chicken free-range or organic farm opportunities contact the Poultry Industry Association of New Zealand (PIANZ).