Cage-free means indoors with no cage. Free-range means indoors with token outdoor access. Pasture-raised is the only label that guarantees real space on real grass, roughly 108 square feet per hen.
Cage-free
Cage-free hens live inside a barn, uncaged, on the floor. There is no requirement for outdoor access, and typical stocking density is dense, often less than one square foot per bird.
Free-range
Free-range hens have "access to the outdoors." The USDA does not define how much space, how long, or what the outdoor area has to be. In practice, this usually means a small door leading to a concrete pad or a bare dirt lot.
Pasture-raised
The only egg label that guarantees real pasture is "Certified Humane Pasture-Raised," which requires 108 square feet per bird and 6 hours of daily outdoor time on living vegetation.
Our hens live at much lower densities than that. They move to new grass regularly, forage bugs and greens all day, and get herded in at dusk.
The simplest test
Look at the yolk. Pastured eggs are deep orange. Anything paler was probably raised indoors, no matter what the carton says.
