Disadvantages of free range

Answer 1

Free range farming when it involves chickens can mean many different things. It can mean the hens are not kept in cages but in a large building, it can mean they are allowed into an outside wired enclosure or it can mean the chickens are loose to wander all over the farmyard. many people believe the free range hen is happier and thus produces better quality eggs. Farmers often charge more for a free range egg than one from a battery farm or intensive egg production facility. Free range of any kind means the animal leads a life closer to its natural environment doing what it does best.

If you want true free range meat look for a grass fed or pasture raised label.

Answer 2

The disadvantages of free-range livestock production is as follows:

• Risk of death-loss from predation: animals are more likely to die or be killed from predators because they are out fending for themselves than animals that are confined indoors or in confined animal feeding operations.
• More land is needed per animal, or as far as per lb of meat, milk or per egg is concerned, more acres or hectares are needed to produce that product than what is needed in CAFO operations.
• More planning is necessary for animals being raised in an intensive rotational grazing system, or when grazing animals in a certain area for a certain period of time. Animals cannot be simply let out to eat whatever they want otherwise the pasture may become decimated, overgrazed or overgrown, depending on the species being used.
• A scientific study done by the FAO reports that ruminants grazed on grass or fed a higher-roughage diet tend to release more methane than if they were fed a high-concentrate diet of grain.
• Animals raised using free-range livestock production are often no different from those raised on CAFO operations. Holsteins and Jerseys are still used for producing milk when rotationally grazed for production "natural milk," for instance.

Answer 3

More land is needed to produce the same agricultural product than what is needed to produce a conventional product. Plus, often more management preparations and labour is needed to produce a product free-range (i.e., rotational grazing cattle so that you're switching pastures 6 times a day). There is also more risk of losing livestock to predators and to the elements (extreme weather conditions). As far as the economics of scale is concerned, anything that is organic or free-range is higher in price than conventional products (that obviously take more machinery and inputs to produce).