I certainly want free range chickens, but I have had problems finding ones that are truly free range. The dirty secret of that business is that they put the chickens on a lawn and then feed them grain, for at least 50% of their calories. It's the bad omega6 fats that are in those grains that you want to avoid. I have looked all over to find a chicken farmer who uses a grain like tapioca that does not have bad fats, but so far no luck.
The other problem is I have found eggs labeled free range but cannot find any whole chickens that are free range available in any major supermarket.
I only eat organic chicken. Not so much for the taste because once you cook it, season it or sauce it up it tastes about the same really. The reason I eat organic chicken is because of the lack of hormones and antibiotics in the meat and GMOs in their feed. I really do believe that those unnatural practices are one of the things that gives us cancer.
I grew up on a cattle farm. We had chickens, too and lots of fresh vegetables, grown with no pesticides. I can tell you from first hand knowledge, chickens are nasty animals, free range or not. Ours were free range. It was my job to care for the chickens and gather the eggs. I hated that job, but you live on a farm, you do what you have to do. I always wondered and still do, who first saw an egg pop out of a chicken's ass and decided that was something good to eat? I do not eat eggs at all...well, maybe if there is a pound of cheese on them...so what's the use? Chicken is my least favorite meat, I will eat it, but not often. And one more thing, cow shit is pretty bad smelling, too. I know, I have shoveled tons of it.
Chicken tastes very similar to rattlesnake or alligator meat. Just sayin' cause I've eaten all three.
Free range is healthiest to eat no doubt. The drawbacks to the farmer raising free range chickens are losing so many chickens and eggs to predators. Hawks also love to eat chicken, especially the chicks. Other predators in the region I live are red foxes, coyotes and weasels. Plus toss in snakes. Snakes love to eat the eggs and chicks.
And yes, chickens do eat their own shit.
I honestly think it is rather silly to worry about how a chicken is being killed. It is kind of like judging how severely a girl was , or asking "if you were , how would you prefer to be " (assuming you have no fantasies). I think it sucks that chickens and animals get eaten period, and in fact I consider it a different spectrum of cruelty to give an animal a great "life experience" only to end it's life short, at it's peak of health, just because you want to eat it.
I personally check my soul in at the door, whenever I want to eat meat, fish, or eggs. I don't pretend that it is right because I know if some higher species wanted to eat me, I certainly wouldn't be cool with it. I don't care what any religious book says, I flat out will never think I'm doing the moral thing by eating animals. I can't go days without eating meat, eggs, or animal protein. I literally go into almost a "blood rage" where I need to eat meat. I've tried being a vegetarian, since I don't believe in veganism (it seems half-assed from the moral perspective, and not really even nutritious or healthy enough, since you don't get enough non-fish protein). It is much worse than veganism, and thus unsustainable for me.
I hope, like Nikola Tesla once preached, that alterenate foods are created, in the future, that satiate the "mental" need for meat, and tastes like meat, and gives similar nutritious, or even more nutrious, protein structure. I would easily quit real meat, if that ever happens. I hope that it does in the future because that would be ideal. There is some great research being done in this area.