What makes a Free Range Chicken?

USDA standards allow any chicken with access to the outside to be labeled Free-Range. Large poultry houses that raise chickens conventionally can give chickens access to a yard then regardless of what’s in or on that yard (i.e. how clean it is) and regardless of whether the chickens actually use the yard, the birds can be labeled free range. That may be the "letter of the law" but we don’t think it’s the spirit.  Even certified organic chickens can be raised and labeled like this.

Oaklyn Plantation Free Chickens conform to a higher standard. We believe a truly free-range chicken is raised in uncrowded conditions and given free access to clean green ground. Chickens raised in this manner are sometimes more accurately called "pastured poultry". This environment, comfortable housing and good feed and water produce a chicken that has more flavor and substance. A customer said our chicken is to conventional chicken what steak is to bologna.

In addition to "ranging", Oaklyn Plantation Free Range Chickens are not fed antibiotics, coccidiostats or other artificial growth stimulants.

Click here to go to the USDA web page concerning free range and other labeling claims