>I'm somewhat disgusted by that, but is there any reason that WE AS
>THINKING BEINGS should cause any more pain to other sentient beings
>than is necessary?>

It might be" this thinking "that cause humans to be insensitive to
their
own feelings and by cosequence to the feelings of other living being,
because without "this thinking" there is no room for the concept of
separation (self and non self) .
This sens of separation lead us to think that my pain is indepenant
of
their pains

>I'm not satisfied that keeping chickens in cages for their whole lives
>is necessary

 There is lot of predators here with racoons, minks ,eagles and awks ,
despite of that there is a lot of free range raised poultry here ,in
small
farms or homesteads. A secure chicken coop at night is essential ,
good
protecting rooster and presence of a dog in the yard at critical times
is
working (dawn and late evening).
there is a larger scale organic eggs operations here (still
small,local
distribution only ) that use the chicken tractor concept whith a
movable
electric fence enclosing a piece of  pasture that are changed every
few
days. So they are not caged ,have access to a  fresh big space all
day
long and are relatively safe from predators

>defeathering is done something like dipping into boiling water to loosen
>the feathers while these creatures are still very alive and can feel pain.
>If anyone knows differently, believe me I am the first person that would
>want to know.)  I would really like to know if this is done differently
>in organic free-range poultry farming.

the practices  used in crop and  animal raising is dependant on the
scale of
the operation and economical considerations related to it rather than
the
awaraness or good will of the farmer.
I have seen so often people with good intention end up doing things
that
they don't feel good about, just because extending their production
implied
more economic pressures.
The only chance to have it done differently is if there is a direct
contact
between the farmer and his or her customers (it allows for way smaller
scale
farming and quality rather than pure economical pressure).
for defeathering as an example , because i want my meat totally raw, i
ask
for skined chicken (it is easier to do than taking the feather out), i
can
obtain that because the farmer is small scale and me as a customer
represent
an higher percentage of his customer than if i was one lost soul among
thousands of customers in a big scale operation.
jean-claude