Why are your chickens “pasture-raised,” but your eggs are “free-range”?

At Goldfinch Farm, we raise chickens, not confusion — but let’s be honest, the way terms like free-range, pasture-raised, and cage-free get tossed around in grocery stores can make your head spin faster than a chicken chasing a grasshopper.

Let’s break down the USDA and industry-standard definitions, so you know what you’re buying:

🐔 Cage-Free

• Hens must have indoor access to roam, perch, and lay eggs in nest boxes.

• No cages, but no outdoor access is required.

• Often used in large warehouses or barns.

🌞 Free-Range

• Hens must have some access to the outdoors, though there’s no minimum space requirement or standard for what that outdoor area looks like.

• Sometimes it’s a small concrete pad or dirt patch, accessed through a pop-hole.

🌱 Pasture-Raised

(regulated by 3rd parties like Certified Humane or American Pastured Poultry Producers Association)

• Typically means hens get 108+ square feet per bird of rotated, vegetated pasture.

• They’re outside most of the day, with shelter at night.

• There’s no universal USDA standard, but the best pasture-raised farms move birds frequently and give them meaningful access to forage.

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So… where does Goldfinch Farm fall in all this?

We’re not a certified label farm (certifications cost money, and we’d rather spend that on goat snacks and habitat restoration ), but here’s what we do:

Our meat chickens

Live in mobile “tractors” that are open-bottomed and moved twice daily to fresh pasture. They’re technically confined, but only to protect them from hawks, foxes, raccoons, etc. They graze, scratch, nap, and dust bathe out in the sun and on clean grass.

Label-wise: These would be considered pasture-raised, and we stand by that proudly.

Our laying hens (the egg crew)

Sleep in sturdy, mobile coops at night. During the day? Total freedom. They dust bathe in the sunshine, forage in the woods, pick bugs off the goats, and scratch in the compost. They go where they please and live their best feathered lives.

Label-wise: We list them as free-range because that’s the most widely recognized term. But by most standards (and by hen opinion), our girls are absolutely pasture-raised, just not certified. They also get certain organic grain.

Fun fact: Our heritage-breed hens are so scrappy, one once fought off a hawk until Megan could come running. Nature is metal.