page_title: Free range
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Free range / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Duck farm in Hainan Province, People's Republic of China
context_page_description: Free range denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals, for at least part of the day, can roam freely outdoors, rather than being confined in an enclosure for 24 hours each day.
  On many farms, the outdoors ranging area is fenced, thereby technically making this an enclosure, however, free range systems usually offer the opportunity for the extensive locomotion and sunlight that is otherwise prevented by indoor housing systems. Free range may apply to meat, eggs or dairy farming.
  The term is used in two senses that do not overlap completely: as a farmer-centric description of husbandry methods, and as a consumer-centric description of them. There is a diet where the practitioner only eats meat from free-range sources called ethical omnivorism.
  In ranching, free-range livestock are permitted to roam without being fenced in, as opposed to fenced-in pastures. In many agriculture-based economies, free-range livestock are quite common.
context_section_description: If one allows "free range" to include "herding", free range was a typical husbandry method at least until the development of barbed wire and chicken wire. The generally poor understanding of nutrition and diseases before the twentieth century made it difficult to raise many livestock species without giving them access to a varied diet, and the labor of keeping livestock in confinement and carrying all their feed to them was prohibitive except for high-profit animals such as dairy cattle.
  In the case of poultry, free range was the dominant system until the discovery of vitamins A and D in the 1920s, which allowed confinement to be practised successfully on a commercial scale. Before that, green feed and sunshine (for the vitamin D) were necessary to provide the necessary vitamin content. Some large commercial breeding flocks were reared on pasture into the 1950s. Nutritional science resulted in the increased use of confinement for other livestock species in much the same way.
caption: Free range ducks in Hainan Province, China
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-W510", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "1.1200", "Image DateTime": "2012:01:18 02:20:07", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Copyright 2009", "Image ExifOffset": "308", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-W510", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5600", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8041", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:01:18 02:20:07", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:01:18 02:20:07", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2206307/718500", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "9409/1000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2971/1000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2971/1000", "EXIF MeteringMode": "MultiSpot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "47/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "5424", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "26", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}