Feedlots confine cattle in open pens for rapid weight gain before slaughter. Understanding feedlot welfare challenges helps consumers and advocates assess this widely practiced but poorly understood system.
Feedlot cattle experience a range of welfare challenges concentrated into a relatively short but intensive period. Transportation to the feedlot from multiple sources causes significant stress, with animals from different groups mixing and fighting. Respiratory disease — the leading cause of feedlot mortality — causes fever, depression, and labored breathing that is distressing and often inadequately treated. Heat stress is a serious concern in summer months; cattle cannot easily thermoregulate in hot, crowded, dusty pens without shade. High-grain diets produce the energy for rapid growth but also cause subclinical digestive distress. Pain management during routine husbandry procedures is the exception rather than the rule in many operations. The welfare picture is one of cumulative, multifaceted stress.