Everyone seems to be confused as to what the different meat labels mean and which is best to buy. It's pretty simple: GRASS FED, GRASS FED, GRASS FED!!! Usually farmers raising their animals this way do not use Antibiotics or hormones anyway, making it 'organic', and obviously grass fed is the best of 'free range'.

These definitions work for all animals, not just chickens.
I have not found any grass fed meat at health stores, with the exception of New Zealand beef. We are starting to order ours.

I am linking sites explaining the HUGE difference between grass fed and grain fed, and also a few sites I have found to order the meat. :)

**Cage-free: This just means the chickens are not in cages; they may be in barns that they never leave (even though there might be a little door at one end; chickens don't go out of their field of vision for food, or even for water); or they may be in large open fenced bare-dirt yards that the chickens have stripped long ago of all vegetation

**Fenceless free-range: No barriers, physical or functional, separate the chickens' living and nesting quarters from access to real pasture AND the chickens actually go out on this pasture to feed as much as they desire

**Free-range: The public thinks, or hopes, that this means chickens which are out in the grassland around a real farm; actually, it's a rather meaningless term, since it is often abused by unscrupulous poultry operations that "convert" to "free range" by putting a tiny door in huge commercial poultry barns, then claiming that the chickens have "access" to the out of doors. To legally qualify to use the term, chickens need only have a small patch of dirt to be on instead of a cage; the term legally does not require any "range" diet at all. In actual practice, since the public believes in this term, really good grass-ranged poultry is sometimes labelled "Free Range" simply because the retailer chooses this term over the cumbersome "pastured poultry" term. We propose that the term "Grass-Ranged" be adopted to indicate limitless and close access to real, living grassland resulting in actual free-choice consumption of grasses and associated plants and animals.

**Grass-ranged or Grass-fed: able to roam around to choose and eat fresh greens, primarily grass but including all the vast variety of natural pastureland plants and insects without limitation; two grass-range methods of poultry raising are "pastured poultry", and "fenceless free range"

**Organic: organic food sources must not contain traces of harmful chemicals; the term does not insure that poultry has been raised in the best possible way, with unlimited supply of living grass, but only that the poultry has near zero harmful artificial chemicals

**Pastured poultry: poultry kept in movable, floorless pens, moved daily over fresh range pasture; the pens, called "chicken tractors", also contain waterers and grain-feeders; unlike ruminants, chickens need a certain amount of grain along with their grass; if allowed free access to grass, chickens will consume up to 30% of their calories in grass and green plants; pasturing creates the very healthiest chicken meat and eggs (and creates very fertile pastureland, too)

**Range: "An open region over which livestock may roam and feed" --- land having enough living, growing grasses, plus a complement of legumes and other plants and perhaps insects and small animals to support livestock of various kinds, including poultry

According the the American Grassfed Association,
**Grass fed: "The AGA defines grass-fed products from ruminants, including cattle, bison, goats and sheep, as those food products from animals that have eaten nothing but their mother’s milk and fresh grass or grass-type hay from their birth till harvest."



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Everyone seems to be confused as to what the different meat labels mean and which is best to buy. It's pretty simple: GRASS FED, GRASS FED, GRASS FED!!! Usually farmers raising their animals this way do not use Antibiotics or hormaones anyway, making it 'organic', and obviously grass fed is the best of 'free range'.

These defintions work for all animals, not just chickens.
I have not found any grass fed meat at health stores, with the exception of New Zealand beef. We are starting to order ours.

I am linking sites explaining the HUGE difference between grass fed and grain fed, and also a few sites I have found to order the meat. :)

**Cage-free: This just means the chickens are not in cages; they may be in barns that they never leave (even though there might be a little door at one end; chickens don't go out of their field of vision for food, or even for water); or they may be in large open fenced bare-dirt yards that the chickens have stripped long ago of all vegetation

**Fenceless free-range: No barriers, physical or functional, separate the chickens' living and nesting quarters from access to real pasture AND the chickens actually go out on this pasture to feed as much as they desire

**Free-range: The public thinks, or hopes, that this means chickens which are out in the grassland around a real farm; actually, it's a rather meaningless term, since it is often abused by unscrupulous poultry operations that "convert" to "free range" by putting a tiny door in huge commercial poultry barns, then claiming that the chickens have "access" to the out of doors. To legally qualify to use the term, chickens need only have a small patch of dirt to be on instead of a cage; the term legally does not require any "range" diet at all. In actual practice, since the public believes in this term, really good grass-ranged poultry is sometimes labelled "Free Range" simply because the retailer chooses this term over the cumbersome "pastured poultry" term. We propose that the term "Grass-Ranged" be adopted to indicate limitless and close access to real, living grassland resulting in actual free-choice consumption of grasses and associated plants and animals.

**Grass-ranged or Grass-fed: able to roam around to choose and eat fresh greens, primarily grass but including all the vast variety of natural pastureland plants and insects without limitation; two grass-range methods of poultry raising are "pastured poultry", and "fenceless free range"

**Organic: organic food sources must not contain traces of harmful chemicals; the term does not insure that poultry has been raised in the best possible way, with unlimited supply of living grass, but only that the poultry has near zero harmful artificial chemicals

**Pastured poultry: poultry kept in movable, floorless pens, moved daily over fresh range pasture; the pens, called "chicken tractors", also contain waterers and grain-feeders; unlike ruminants, chickens need a certain amount of grain along with their grass; if allowed free access to grass, chickens will consume up to 30% of their calories in grass and green plants; pasturing creates the very healthiest chicken meat and eggs (and creates very fertile pastureland, too)

**Range: "An open region over which livestock may roam and feed" --- land having enough living, growing grasses, plus a complement of legumes and other plants and perhaps insects and small animals to support livestock of various kinds, including poultry

According the the American Grassfed Association,
**Grass fed: "The AGA defines grass-fed products from ruminants, including cattle, bison, goats and sheep, as those food products from animals that have eaten nothing but their mother’s milk and fresh grass or grass-type hay from their birth till harvest."

http://www.mercola.com/beef/main.htm
http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/grass_fed_beef_in_a_nutshell.htm
http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/index.htm
http://www.dairysheepfarm.com/index.htm