Don’t be misled by packages of meat, eggs, and dairy “products” with pictures of happy animals running near quaint country barns and reassuring labels proclaiming “organic” or “free-range.” Animals on typical organic and “free-range” farms<\/a> often spend much of their time confined to crowded sheds or mud-filled pens, just as animals on conventional factory farms do. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) requires animals on so-called “free-range” farms to have access to outdoor areas, it doesn’t specify how much time they must be allowed to spend outside or how much space they should be given.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cows on organic dairy farms can be kept in crowded sheds, mired in their own waste, much like cows on factory dairy farms<\/a>. They, too, are artificially impregnated every year, and their calves are taken from them soon after birth. Cows on organic farms often aren’t given antibiotics\u2014even when they’re sick or when their udders become infected, something that happens often\u2014because medicated animals lose their “organic” status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n