Free-range chickens are widely considered the healthier, more natural and more moral chicken farming option, but they also carry more parasites, according to a new study.
Cage-free chickens are more likely than birds raised on commercial farms to be infected with parasites, according to a new study released this week from the University of California, Riverside.
Researchers who studied hens in 20 back yards in Southern California over a period of six months found that birds that were free to roam were more at risk than commercial birds of picking up fleas, lice and ticks. Eighty percent of the birds were found to have parasites.
“Some of the perks [of cage-free chicken farming] might also increase the birds’ availability to parasites,” said Amy Murillo, the co-author of the report, which was published Monday in the Journal of Medical Entomology.
The chickens are more susceptible to these parasites because they come into more contact with the ground as opposed to chickens raised on commercial farms that are housed in battery cages, according to researchers.
Chickens housed in battery cages, which were banned in Europe in 2012, make “little or no contact with the ground,” the report said.
However, parasite-infested chickens cause “no risk to humans” who eat the eggs or meat of infected chickens, the report concluded.