Before typing the feedlot, bos taurus spend virtually all of their life grazing in the range or even in unformed fields of grain such as wheat pasture. Another time cows obtain an entry-level weight, astir 650 pounds (300 kilo), it is transferred to the feedlot to exist as fed the specialised diet which can be manufactured higher of hay, corn, sorghum, various other grains, by-products of food processing, such as sugar beet waste, molasses, soybean meal, or cottonseed meal, and minerals. Feedlot diets come ordinarily super dense in food energy, to encourage the deposition of fat, or even marbling, in the fleshly's muscles; this fat is worthy when it leads to 'succulency' in the consequent meat. A brute could benefit even more, an extra 400 pounds (180 kilo) spell at a feedlot.

It used to be that cows come flesh out to their finished weight, the bos taurus come transported to a processing facility.