Access to outdoor range dramatically improves farmed chicken welfare, allowing expression of natural behaviors like dust bathing, foraging, and solar access that are denied in indoor systems.
Chickens are highly motivated to perform natural behaviors - they will work hard for access to dust bathing substrate even when food is freely available. Denying these behaviors causes frustration and stress over the lifetime of a bird. Indoor battery cage and even conventional indoor systems prevent virtually every natural chicken behavior. Outdoor access, by contrast, allows chickens to make choices about their environment, express social preferences, and experience genuine wellbeing. The quality of outdoor access matters enormously - token access to a small concrete apron is not equivalent to genuine pasture.