Feedlot (finishing lot) systems concentrate beef cattle in confined areas during the final weeks or months before slaughter, raising significant welfare concerns about space, behaviour, and disease.
Feedlot welfare concerns are substantial. Highly concentrated housing frustrates cattle natural ranging behaviour, increases social stress from crowding, and creates conditions favouring respiratory disease transmission. Grain-heavy diets cause rumenitis and laminitis at significant rates. Heat stress during summer causes suffering and mortality, with reports of tens of thousands of cattle dying in single heat events. The welfare benefits of feedlots — efficient weight gain before slaughter — accrue primarily to producers and consumers, while welfare costs are borne entirely by the animals. Higher-welfare beef production systems including pasture-finished beef avoid many of these issues.