The Department of Animal Sciences operates our animal farms, laboratories, Feed Technology Center, meat and egg sales room, and other facilities to give students working experience in the field and to advance basic discovery and applied production research. Our farms operate on 1,100 acres, housing beef and dairy cattle, poultry, sheep, swine, and horses, and turning grain and forage into feed and bedding for our animals. And our facilities don’t stop at the boundary of our Urbana campus; we maintain and study herds at research and Extension centers throughout Illinois.
Feed Technology Center
The Feed Technology Center facility is dedicated to advancing feed technology and animal nutrition in partnership with the grain, livestock, companion animal, and feed industries.
Horse Farm
The horse farm has a thriving Standardbred breeding program. It has been home to research that improves equine nutrition and physiology.
Poultry Research Farm
The Poultry Research Farm features a breeder bird facility, a growing bird facility, a cage-laying house, a hatchery/brooder facility, and a building for specialized research.
Meat Science Laboratory
The Meat Science Laboratory is a federally inspected facility for the harvest and processing of cattle, sheep, and swine.
Beef Units
Beef and Sheep Research Field Laboratory
The primary research emphasis of The Beef and Sheep Research Field Laboratory is applied nutrition of feedlot and breeding cattle.
Dixon Springs Agricultural Center
This facility manages approximately 900 beef cows and their offspring that are involved in genetic research including feed efficiency, reproduction, and nutrition.
Orr Beef Research Center
Research at this facility is focused on cow-calf studies for winter cow feeding, reproduction, cattle management, grazing and pasture management.
Dairy Units
Lincoln Avenue Dairy
This facility hosts research in genetics, nutrition, physiology, immunology and management, and has an active teaching program.
Nutrition Field Laboratory
The Nutrition Field Laboratory is a specialized facility for dairy calf research and provides students with hands-on experience in various research techniques in calves.
Swine Units
Imported Swine Research Laboratory
Current research at ISRL is focused on biomedical sciences (using the pig as a model for human health and medicine).
Grein Swine Unit
The Grein Swine Unit is a specialized research and teaching facility that provides a flexible space for our researchers.
Piglet Nutrition and Cognition Laboratory
Research conducted in PNCL focuses on artificial rearing of pigs and the interaction of early-life nutrition on the development of immunity, and gut and brain function in the pig.
Swine Research Center
Many different research trials are conducted at SRC with a strong focus on nutrition, metabolism, reproduction, and behavior.