Animal welfare: feedlot versus pasture

摘要

THERE is a public perception that animal welfare is reduced under intensive animal farming systems compared with extensive or free-range systems. Many animal interest groups have strong positions against intensive systems where animals are confined, and use these as the focus of campaigns. Because feedlots are an intensive system, the feedlot industry is at risk of being presented and targeted as a system in which there is inherent animal suffering due to the nature of the production system itself. There is a lack of scientifically defensible evidence to either support or counter such claims.