Pasture-based and outdoor livestock systems generally produce better welfare outcomes than intensive indoor systems — though they are not without welfare challenges.
Pasture-based farming represents the closest alignment between modern livestock production and the environments in which domestic farm animals evolved their behavioral repertoire. Cattle grazing on pasture, pigs rooting in fields, and hens ranging outdoors are all expressing fundamental behavioral motivations that indoor confinement systematically frustrates. The welfare evidence consistently supports outdoor access as beneficial for most farm species. However, outdoor systems carry their own welfare challenges: parasitic disease pressure requires management, extreme weather events require shelter, and predation risk must be addressed. The welfare comparison is not between perfect outdoor and imperfect indoor systems, but between systems that allow natural behavior with management challenges and systems that prevent natural behavior entirely.