I have questoins about free range meat?!

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Some "free range" animals are still killed in the same slaughterhouses as conventionally raised animals. I guess some are killed less cruelly, but still, eating meat means you are consenting to have an animal killed!

The con is that you are being suckered into thinking you're getting a "humane" product when really you aren't. There's no such thing as humane meat. There is no humane way to kill an animal.

Chickens = place in a cone, cut off head quickly
Cows = Bonk in the forehead really hard, they pass out quietly and quickly - then butcher
There is no reason for any meat producing enterprise to kill their animals in an inhumane way. The meat will be bad from an animal under stress. Not worth it.
The cons of free range may be where not enough fresh food is provided to the animal by an inexperienced farmer who thinks they are doing the right thing by turning their animals out and not providing extra food when grass is scarce.
Chickens don't benefit that much because in the 'free range' setting, they all hang out in groups close together anyways. Chickens don't 'stretch their wings' contrary to what people want you to believe.

In Jonathan Safran Foer's book, Eating Animals, he talks to some small scale free range meat producers. Some of these people had to send their animals to the exact same slaughterhouses that the factory farms sent their animals to because of various laws and regulations. Even if they were not sent to these industrial sized slaughterhouses, places that kill animals on a large scale are never going to be pleasant places. But they will almost certainly be better than the hell of the huge industrial slaughterhouses. It is up to you to decide what your standards are and what exactly meets those standards. If you want meat that is raised in the most humane way possible, you will have to work for it though. Get connected to a small farmer where you can see the entire process of production. Chances are that it will be a tough search and a long drive though.

As for anything labeled as "Free Range", do not trust a label. If you think that a corporation is above slapping a misleading sticker on their product to sell more of it you are very wrong. You cannot find anything humane at Walmart. Animals on that large of scale are treated as economic units, not creatures with feelings.

As for the cons of free range here are some links:

This is a video of some "Free Range" hens that were taken from a laying operation. Their eggs would be labeled as free range. It is not one of those meat horror videos and it has a happy ending in that all of the chickens were able to live the rest of their lives on a sanctuary. But the hens do look pretty bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Gbq3lkKwY&feature=player_embedded

I came across this when I was searching. I thought it was coincidental to have mentioned Foer's book and then stumbled across this video. He states some facts that he has found, but it is up to you how much you trust what he says. I personally think he is a pretty real guy from what I have seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbx0hpVIuxg&feature=player_embedded

And finally this is a website about how "Humane" meat is not always what it seems.
http://humanemyth.org/

I hope this helps! And in response to the dude who said that sticking chickens upside down into a cone gives them a sense of euphoria. I highly doubt that.

Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

I have raised and processed my own chickens. Will most likely do a hog next year as well.

The process for us to slaughter the chickens is to place them in a metal cone upside down which causes them to go into a state of euphoria. I then use large pruning shears to cut off their heads which kills them instantly - I am very careful because I do not want them to feel any pain. Incidentally, I also thank each one, but that's just me.

Our chickens live outside in the sunshine with access to a nice insulated chicken coop whenever they want to go. They are surrounded by a 3 acre fenced enclosure with two gentle guardian dogs that protect them from predators. They hop around at bugs, scratch the dirt, run around, eat grass, and do all the chicken-y things that chickens are supposed to do.

The cons of buying something "free range" is that if you are buying commercial "free range" poultry or eggs, you need to understand that the government's definition of free range just means that there's a small door opening to a tiny enclosure out back. There's not rule about even that it has to be grass - often it is just a small paved enclosure that's just a few feet square. The chickens inside the chicken house are generally crowded and stand in their own feces.

My best advice - know your source. Find a local farmer, visit his place and see how he/she raises their chickens. My uncle was a vegetarian for 20 years and recently just started eating meat again because he was severely nutritionally imbalanced, but he is extremely careful to eat meat that had a happy life. If that is why you are asking this question, that would be my best advice - make sure you know 100% that they had a happy life and a painless death, which is not something commercial operations generally provide.

Some people may not consider this humane. I have to respectfully disagree with that, as someone who is allergic to soy and whose body does not metabolize most vegetables efficiently, I would be extremely malnourished if I had to be on a meat-free diet, especially if it was vegan. I do already eat meat-free for 75% of my diet, but would not feel well if I cut out the remainder of it.

I don't blame my cat for being a carnivore, either. And the truth is, if I am going to eat meat then I am confident that I *can* have meat that was produced humanely. And I will always appreciate the fact that my meat was a life, which is a lot more than most people do when they sit down to a hamburger.

To Jonathan - (btw I am a woman, not a dude) perhaps saying chickens go into a euphoria is the wrong way to put it. being upside down to a chicken signals their brain to "go to sleep" and so it puts them in a sort of haze, some people say it is full sleep though I don't think so, since then you put them right side up again they are able to collect themselves again within a few seconds.

I experienced this not only during processing chickens, but also during tagging (placing a plastic leg marker on specific birds) - I would get a chicken and flip it over to its back and immediately it would be calm, the eyes close and the head droops back. It sort of "hypnotizes" them. I apologize I have no studies to cite on this, but just in personal experience. A scared chicken is very obvious, they squawk loudly and flap their wings, etc. An upside down chicken does none of these things, they basically just lay back and relax.

this should help spread the word

peta.org