Chickens are one of the most commonly kept livestock in the tropics. They are very productive for meat and eggs. Being small, they do not present the challenges of larger livestock like cows and pigs. All-in-all, their widespread presence in rural Asia indicate that chickens are the preferred choice for smallholdings.
Keeping chickens in battery cages has been a controversial topic of modern industrial farming. Other than the cruelty of immobilizing an animal in a cage barely its size, the widespread use of antibiotics, growth hormones, and other chemicals gives rise to many health concerns. The opposite of battery cage is to let the chickens range freely over a natural vegetated environment.
Free ranging chickens
While the idea of free range sounds fantastic in theory, there are reasons that some of the farms we have visited do not let their chickens range freely. The chickens there do range but are limited to an enclosed area. Some of the reasons for not letting the chickens range freely include:
- Attack by predators like snakes, wild boars, eagles, etc.
- Hygiene considerations since the chickens will not use a designated toilet
- Messing up the garden by scratching up seedlings and eating vegetables
- Keeping the eggs to a limited area for ease of searching
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