Free-range systems offer hens outdoor access and more space than caged systems, but welfare outcomes depend heavily on range quality, stocking density, and flock management.
Free-range laying hen welfare is better than caged systems in important respects but falls considerably short of ideal. The primary welfare improvements — space, behavioral expression, and outdoor access — are genuine and meaningful. However, free-range systems still concentrate thousands of hens in single flocks at densities that drive social stress, pecking injuries, and disease. Keel bone fractures from falls during perch access remain a pervasive welfare problem not yet solved in commercial free-range systems. Range quality — vegetation cover, shade structures, feeding stations distributed across the range — dramatically affects how many hens actually venture outside and benefit from the free-range claim. Stocking density and flock size management are critical variables that good welfare free-range systems must optimize.