The practice of breeding animals for food in a supposedly natural and cruelty-free manner. Animals live comfortably outside instead of in cramped stalls; are fed healthy diets. Alternate to factory farms.
A way for breeders to obfuscate the way they raise animals (usually fowl) and increase profit-margins on their product, even though given the choice to roam the field or stay in a climate-controlled food-a-plenty barn, the animals will chose the latter every time fact.
Consumers are given free-range to spend as much as they want to feel good about the animal that probably never roamed out of the barn anyway.
adj. Not yet trained or housebroken. Used to refer to someone prior to being shampooed and conditioned to new expectations of domesticated behaviour.
GF1: "What do you think of her new toyboy?"
GF2: "I thought she was crazy, taking on somebody that free range, but she shampooed him into a total slut"