Animal Science Department Tour!
Animal Science programs at the University of Nebraska began with the establishment of the Department of Animal Husbandry by the Board of Regents in 1898. This came one year after the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station was created. The first reference to experimental work with livestock was in 1891. The Animal Husbandry staff was housed in two rooms of the south wing of Agriculture Hall until they moved into Animal Husbandry Hall in 1917. The Departments of Dairy Husbandry and Poultry Husbandry were established in 1902 and 1922, respectively. The Loeffel meat Laboratory which encompasses approximately 19,500 square feet of space, was completed and dedicated in 1954. In 1964 the Departments were renamed as Animal Science, Dairy Science and Poultry Science, and three years later the Departments of Animal and Dairy Science were merged. The dairy-processing faculty formed the core for a new Department of Food Science and Technology. Marvel Baker Hall, which included approximately 54,000 square feet of new space, was dedicated in 1969, and housed a portion of the expanding program. Poultry Science joined Animal Science in 1977. The construction of the current Animal Science Building and renovation of the Loeffel Meat Laboratory and Marvel Baker Hall were completed in 1988. The new construction of approximately 186,000 square feet added a covered livestock unit with an arena, an intensive animal use unit, laboratory, classroom and office space. The new building incorporates two former animal science buildings and was dedicated on April 22, 1988. Adjacent to the new building are four livestock holding pens and two pole barns for short-term housing of animals used in teaching or extension programs. One poultry building is also located nearby. |  |
Major animal facilities used in teaching, research and extension are located away from the Lincoln campus.
Agricultural Research and Development Center at Mead: is a multi-unit facility including a working dairy with approximately 300 cattle, a 1,000-head capacity beef feedlot, a 325-sow swine farrow-to-finish unit, a 170-head purebred Angus and crossbred beef teaching heard, a 190 cow-beef physiology herd, an individual cattle feeding barn, two feed mills and approximately 3,000 acres of pasture.
Haskell Ag Lab affiliated with the Northeast Research and Extension Center at Concord: contains a 500-head capacity, 42-pen beef feedlot with processing facilities and a feed mill for beef research, four 144-head swine growing-finishing facilities, one 144-head swine nursery and one 256-head growing-finishing unit.
West Central Research and Extension Center at North Platte: has a beef physiology barn with processing facilities, calving barn, feeding barn, open cattle lots, 40 individual feeding crates, and 600 acres of pasture along with a feed mill and pelleting mill.
 | Panhandle Research and Extension Center at Scottsbluff: includes a 42-pen beef feedlot, several larger pens, a dry-grain feed mill and bunker silos, and access to 800 acres of pasture. High Plains Ag Lab near Sidney: is managed by Panhandle REC. It includes access to 1,600 acres of pasture. Dalbey-Halleck Research Farm near Virginia: is a 1,140-acre farm with 175 mature beef cows and 80 heifers used for beef cow-calf management research. Gudmundsen Sandhills Laboratory near Whitman: is a 12,800-acre range ranch with about 1,200 acres of sub irrigated meadow and 11,600 acres of upland range with 360 March-calving and 200 June-calving beef cows used in nutrition and physiology projects. Barta Brothers Ranch near Ainsworth: contains range and pasture for grazing research. |