I was watching tv, and they had this lady on talking about how great free-range turkeys are for Thanksgiving. By allowing the bird its freedom, she says, it ends up living a better life, one based on instinct, not industry.
Of course, none of this has any effect on their inevitable outcome, which is the centerpiece of your dinner table, where they will be torn to be pieces by an angry mob of hungry relatives. And this is where the idea of "free range being humane" falls apart.
What's worse: raising an animal for food - or raising an animal for food, but pretending you're not? The latter is actually crueler, because you're setting the bird up for a fall. He thinks life is unicorns and rainbows, and then you kill it. Keep the bird in a cage, and the prospect of death seems like a release. It's how I view my life currently, FYI.
But if you really feel strongly about their living conditions, then I suggest you adopt a turkey, where you not only raise, but bathe, massage and spoil your very own turkey. Take him to a day spa, give it a mud bath, and enliven its loins with a relaxing rubdown. And when you're done, let's see if he feels any happier when you're shoving a pound of stuffing up its rectum. I doubt it.
And if you disagree, then you sir are worse than Hitler.
