Abstract: Animal welfare is an important factor influencing animal product quality and safety. Beef cattle as an important source of meat, supply many nutritious beef products for people. More and more people become concerning about the welfare of beef cattle because of a mount of welfare problems caused by long industry chain. According to domestic and foreign beef cattle welfare studies, this paper mainly talks about the welfare of beef cattle in farming, transport and slaughter process and the influence on beef quality, in order to formulate ourselves welfare regulations and guide the management of beef cattle industry.

Key words: beef cattle welfare; beef quality; welfare legislation; evaluation method