I've only just noticed this thread, and read someone saying that there wouldn't be enough land to "free range" all the chooks we need - sorry, having been a free-range egg farmer, that's utter nonsense!
I could launch into reams of the "whys and wherefores" of extensive (free range) production, but in essence "small is beautiful" - we now have to consider "sustainability" pretty much top of the list for future farming - what has made "economic sense" for many years (based on cheap fuel, and fuel-dependent monocultures) makes no sense whatsoever in a world without "cheap" fossil fuel and it's products.
Having kept hens on a reasonable scale in as natural a way as possible, disease is virtually non-existent in comparison to the animal Belsens (it ain't rocket science - good housing, good food, clean water, cared-for ranging areas.........), and there are schemes at the moment that sensibly return to "multi-layer" horticulture/farming whereby rather than chemicalised monocultures you can use the same patch of land for trees, crops, and livestock, AND increase the fertility by returning to crop rotation.
So rather than a "silly bunnyhuggers" idea, free range is ultimately the "only way to go" (and the sooner it happens, the better!)
What's stopping it? - all the usual suspects, especially "Big Agrochem" who make a small fortune out of toxic chemical nostrums to keep the poor animals alive in the appalling conditions of factory farms (and their "gone native" buddies in DEFRA, the NFU and government..)
Now where have I come across something similar?................