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Published: March 26 2012

Buzz Fleischman - Columnist Page. I got into the habit of reading labels at supermarkets to get the 'best date' on dairy products. Sometimes they hide the freshest products behind the old stuff first. They call it 'rotating the stock' I call it 'tricking the customer into buying the old stuff first'.

Reading labels can make you a better consumer, but it does raise a couple of questions.

Why do eggs from free range chickens cost more than eggs from ones that are cooped up? Do egg farmers have to train gerbils to ride raccoons and keep the chickens 'rounded up'?

The label says these particular cage free chicks roam in a 'pleasant natural environment' and are fed an 'all vegetarian' diet. I don't blame them there; I don't want a meat eating chicken. That just sends the wrong signal doesn't it? Think of a fox in the henhouse with a lot of meat eating chickens taking turns kicking its bushy butt all over the place and sending him home looking like Wile E. Coyote after the train's run over him.

I feel better when I'm eating junk food, and if that's good enough for me, it's good enough for a chicken.

They're not given hormones either. Chickens on hormones probably develop muscles and could kick the farmer out if they try to take their eggs. We also feed free rangers better. Whole grains with a side of slaw. Coop chickens may start striking back because of their lifestyle. Did working class chickens develop the slogan 'The Other White Meat' to take the heat, so to speak, off of them and onto the pigs?

How did this start? It began when a caring farmer gathered his flock for a focus group. He found that while they minded having their eggs taken in the big picture they wanted the freedom their bovine cousins have. Cows roam free but you probably can't tell the difference in a free range hamburger.

But we set chickens free; free to roam; then we charge a lot more for their eggs because they're free to roam. Of course they don't roam very far because then we couldn't find them, so technically they're still captive. I think that instead of the term 'free range' it could be 'limited mobility chickens'. If we really let them run free, would they come back? I don't think so, and then we'd have the specter of small bands of chickens hitchhiking along Federal Highway trying to get to Miami where initially they would hide out in friendly backyards wearing little chicken coats and concealing their faces like a scene from a Farside cartoon.

They would be on the lookout for a friendly outside cat that would take pity on them and offer temporary shelter in return for tales of farm life gone bad.

Just like a soap opera, they'd tell of their locked up cousins fed on steroids and half grains to bulk them up to the point they can win the Mr. chicken-world competition but then unexpectedly get offed by some hatchet-man from Perdue.

Just kidding, but I don't think we want them running around downtown doing the chicken dance at some late night spot, drinking and clubbing with the other animals.

We want them back in the coop at night just like they're on a teenage curfew, because the next thing you know that bad behavior will spread to the other animals. The pigs will want out of the sty and into a 2 BR condo with mud bath spa off of Las Olas.

The ducks will demand custom ponds with slides and whirlpools. Next, they'll want free range luxury resorts and roam with little golf carts.

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