Every year, in Australia, tens of thousands of cattle are subjected to intense confinement in dirty, barren, enclosed yards for beef production. These yards are called feedlots.

 

Feedlots

Australians consume more beef annually per capita than many other countries, averaging approximately 23.4kg per person compared to the global average of 6.3kg.

Our 2025 report ‘Cattle Feedlots: Australia’s Hidden Factory Farms’ found that most consumers are unaware of the fact that an overwhelming majority of this beef originates from cattle feedlots, which are rife with animal welfare issues.

 Feedlots are as cruel and unacceptable as  battery cages and sow stalls, which long ago lost their social license and are being phased out. These barren, overcrowded yards are not legally required to provide shade, enrichment or bedding for cows. On top of this, the transition from a life on pasture to a feedlot is considered to be one of the most stressful times of a cow’s life.

Shockingly, the beef industry has openly stated that the use of feedlots will increase in order to increase production for both domestic and export markets. Below are some of our report’s findings, which expose the heartbreaking plight of the cows who are forced to live out the remainder of their short lives on feedlots.

What is a feedlot?

Every year, tens of thousands of cattle are subjected to intense confinement in dirty, barren, enclosed yards for beef production. These yards are called feedlots. They are nothing but factory farms that exist to ensure that cattle gain weight for slaughter as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Although originally primarily used to feed cattle during periods of drought, feedlots today are considered a routine component of beef production. While still useful for ensuring that cattle have access to food in periods of extreme weather, they have become the norm rather than the exception.

The Meat and Livestock Australia definition of a cattle feedlot illustrates the bleakness of the environment: “a confined yard area with watering and feeding facilities where cattle are completely fed by hand or mechanically for the purpose of beef production.”

How does a feedlot work?

Cattle feedlots consist of pens that generally hold between 50 to 300 cattle each. Smaller feedlots may only have a handful of pens, while large feedlots can contain hundreds. These mega-feedlots can cover thousands of hectares and confine tens of thousands of cattle at a time.

Often owned by big international companies, Australian cattle feedlots are getting larger, with some mega-feedlots expanding their capacity to confine 75,000 or more cattle at a time. Cattle can spend between 30 and 600 days on a feedlot, depending on the ultimate retail destination for their beef. Cattle slaughtered and sold domestically tend to spend 100 days or less confined in a feedlot, while cattle destined for international markets routinely spend more than 100 days in confinement. Slower-growing Wagyu cows are confined for the longest period of time, typically 300 days or more.

Pasture vs Feedlots

Australian cattle do not routinely begin their lives on feedlots. Most are born and spend their first months of life on paddocks before being weaned onto pasture. While there are significant animal welfare concerns about life on pasture, this environment does provide cattle with more opportunities and space to express their natural foraging behaviours.

Owing to the radically different environment provided by pasture-based and feedlot housing systems, the transition from pasture to feedlot is one of the most stressful experiences of a cow’s life. It forces cattle to quickly transition from a life of minimal oversight into a completely abnormal, highly restricted artificial environment.

Behind the labels: Grain fed, Grain finished, Wagyu

Australia’s food labelling schemes provide information that may include the country of origin, means of production, and other important considerations for consumers. These labels can often be found on meat products in the supermarket, restaurants and other food providers.

However, our report found that beef producers are not legally required to label whether their product came from an animal who spent time in a feedlot. Instead, they are allowed to use terms such as “grain fed” and “grain finished”. A majority of beef products labelled "Wagyu" also come from feedlots. The lack of clarity in these labels can limit a consumer’s ability to make informed choices about animal welfare. 

In order to make higher welfare choices, it’s important to remember that all of these terms are vague ways to indicate that the meat comes from animals who were confined to these low welfare, barren yards during their final days. Here are some labels you might find on beef products in your local supermarket and what they actually mean in terms of how much time the animal spent on a feedlot:

• Grain Finished: the animals spent 35+ days on a feedlot
• Grain Fed: the animals spent 100+ days on a feedlot
• Wagyu: most animals spent 350-600 days on a feedlot

Why are feedlots bad for cows?

Like other forms of factory farming, such as battery cages and sow stalls, cattle feedlots are a form of close confinement. Because of this, feedlots are fundamentally unable to provide animals with a good quality of life. While other animal industries are generally moving away from close confinement and providing more enrichment opportunities for the animals in their supply chain, an increasing number of Australian cattle are confined to feedlots. This has created a variety of animal welfare concerns which are compounded by a lack of nationally enforced regulations.

Current laws don’t require feedlots to protect cows from heat

Feedlots are under no legal obligation to provide shelter from the elements. Cattle are regularly exposed to extreme heat, unsanitary conditions, and disease outbreaks. Cattle are often mixed with unfamiliar social groups and are not provided with adequate space to avoid unwanted social interactions. Because the pens often have no foliage and no soft, clean places to rest, the animals regularly lie in thick mud and their own waste. This can lead to an increase in footrot and other negative health outcomes.

Industry standards recommend that cattle feedlots be cleaned every 13 weeks, but this is not a legal requirement and studies have shown that some feedlots may be cleaned as infrequently as three times a year.

How feedlots contradict the Five Domains of Animal Welfare

The Five Domains is a best practice system for evaluating animal welfare, widely accepted by both industry and NGOs. It measures the mental and physical wellbeing of an animal based on both positive and negative experiences. There is a focus on providing positive experiences rather than simply avoiding harm. Under the Five Domains, it’s clear that feedlots fundamentally fail to provide positive experiences for cattle. 

1. Behaviour

Standard: Animals are able to express a full range of natural behaviours such as exploration, foraging, bonding, playing and retreating.

Reality of cattle feedlots: Feedlots fundamentally restrict the ability to express natural behaviours.

2. Nutrition

Standard: Animals have opportunities to access unrestricted, sufficient, species-specific, balanced, varied and clean food and water.

Reality of cattle feedlots: Feedlots see cows moved from eating grass to grain, a dietary change that often results in digestive disorders such as acidosis. Foraging opportunities in a feedlot are largely non-existent.

3. Environment

Standard: The animal’s environment provides comfort through temperature, flooring, space, air, odour, noise and predictability.

Reality of cattle feedlots: Confinement in a feedlot limits an animal’s environment, often restricting their access to shade, clean flooring and space to perform natural behaviours.

4. Mental State

Standard: By presenting positive situations and/or solutions in the previous four functional domains, the mental state of the animal should benefit from predominantly positive states, such as pleasure, comfort, or vitality while reducing negative states such as fear, frustration, hunger, pain, or boredom.

Reality of cattle feedlots: Feedlots are barren environments that limit the ability of cattle to exercise choice and offer no enrichment opportunities, which can lead to frustration, boredom and abnormal behaviour.

5. Health

Standard: Animals are in good health, and illnesses and injuries are prevented, or immediately and appropriately treated.

Reality of cattle feedlots: Feedlots carry the intrinsic risk of compromised health, including bovine respiratory disease, acidosis and lameness.

Feedlots present health risks for humans, too.

Widespread antibiotic use

Cattle in feedlots are fed antibiotics in order to try and avoid infection and disease and ensure the animals can reach slaughter weight and become profitable. A recent scientific research study found multi-antibiotic-resistant bacteria – or ‘superbugs’ – in 55% of ‘beef’ meat from samples sold in supermarkets in Australia due to the preventative use of antibiotics in intensive farms.

Use of growth hormones

Around 40% of Australian ‘beef’ cattle are also treated with growth hormones to increase their weight in a shorter period of time. While the use of growth hormones is still legal in Australia, it is banned in the EU and some Australian brands are moving away from the use due to increasing human health concerns.

Q Fever

Q fever (C. burnetii) is the most commonly reported zoonotic disease in Australia and occurs mostly in regional areas where individuals and communities are working or living near abattoirs, sale yards and feedlots.  It is transmitted most commonly through direct contact with effluent at feedlot effluent, manure or compost pits or through contaminated airborne particles in the atmosphere or on work clothes

www.worldanimalprotection.org