Free-range eggs

The main difference between free range and factory farmed eggs is that the birds are permitted to roam freely within the farmyard and only kept in sheds or henhouses at night. However, not all countries have legal standards defining what free range means. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has no standards and allows egg producers to freely label any egg as a free range egg. Many producers will label their eggs as cage-free in addition to or instead of free range. In other countries, such as Australia, strict regulations govern what can qualify to be called free range and those eggs which do not qualify must state that they are cage or barn laid on their container.

Consumers of free-range eggs want eggs from hens who are kept under traditional low-density free-range methods. Critics of EU-style free-range regulations point out that commercial free-range egg farming generally does not live up to these consumer requirements, since the regulations allow the use of yarding rather than free range. Yarding combines a high-density poultry house with an attached fenced yard, and both its methods and results are closer to high-density confinement than true free range.

Free range eggs may be broader, and have more of an orange colour to their yolks due to the abundance of greens and insects in the diet of the birds. An orange yolk is, however, no guarantee that an egg was produced by a free-range hen. Feed additives such as marigold petal meal, dried algae, or alfalfa meal can be used to color the yolks.

The nutritional content of eggs from genuine free-range hens (hens that forage daily on a grass range) is superior to eggs from other hens, with much higher levels of Omega 3 and Vitamins A and E, and lower levels of total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and Omega 6.