Is Trader Joe's Chicken Humane?

Tonight, I ponied up for the organic chicken cutlets at TJ's, and Will made a great Chicken Marsala with it. Have to say, they were much moister than my typical frozen non-organic cutlets.

To try to understand if regular Trader Joe's poultry is humane, I talked to the manager at my Silver Lake store. I was impressed with how knowledgeable he was -- the manger at the Santa Monica Blvd TJ's in We Ho had no idea about any of it.

Here's the low-down. There are three categories of chicken at Trader Joe's:
Butcher Shop (red label):

• conventionally raised
• primarily vegetarian feed
• cage-free
• no beak docking
• get antibiotics when sick

All Natural (green and brown label)

• cage free
• no beak docking
• not sure if the feed is all-vegetarian or not (didn't write it down)
• no antibiotics
• if a bird gets sick, it gets antibiotics, and joins the Conventional group

 Organic (labeled as such)

• organic, all vegetarian grain feed
• free-range (I think this means birds have some outdoor access, though it doesn't necessarily mean the birds use it or that it has grass on it. Could just be a concrete slab or gravel.)

But as the Humane Society says, Organic doesn't necessarily mean cruelty free. The more I learn, the more I'm realizing that it's REALLY hard to tell how animals were raised. 

Just sent them the following via their contact form:

Hi.

I am a frequent shopper at TJs, and have been for over 10 years now.

I just took a pledge not to eat factory farm meat so am now having to do a lot of research to find out where my meat comes from!

I'm starting to learn about the different categories of chickens -- organic, free range, etc. and found out that a chicken can be organic and free-range but never go outside and still be crowded in a huge facility (it only has to have ACCESS to outside and the outdoor space can be a concrete slab). So I guess I'm using "density" as my measure now.

Can you tell me the maximum density of birds for your different labels--butcher shop, natural and organic?

I'll compare those numbers to the brochures that I saw at Whole Foods--they have a rating system of 1 - 5 for animal welfare, which makes it easy to understand. I hope you can do something similar. Makes it easier to understand what we're buying.

Katy