Facilities
Athens Campus
The animal and dairy science department has modern facilities for accommodating swine, sheep, beef cattle, dairy cattle, and horses. Our facilities are used to house animals used for teaching and research.
The Dairy Teaching Farm in Athens sits on 557 acres and has approximately 150 breeding females. Our beef cattle and sheep are kept on 223 acres at Double Bridges Farm. There are about 45 breeding female beef cattle and 60 sheep. The swine facility has a total of approximately 840 pigs. The UGA Livestock Instructional Arena, located at the horse farm, has 27 horses. In the short future, Down Under will open with a student run purebred Angus beef cattle teaching herd.
The Animal and Dairy Science Department has made a significant investment in C-Lock SmartFeeding™ systems at Double Bridges and our Eatonton farms which allows our students and faculty members to control and monitor cattle food and water intake and measure methane emission.
In addition to our facilities near Athens, the Department of Animal and Dairy Science has farms in Alapaha, Tifton, and Eatonton, GA. These farms have a combined 700 cows for research.
The Edgar L. Rhodes Center for Animal and Dairy Science contains excellent, well-equipped laboratory facilities as well as instruction and research facilities that allow sophisticated animal studies, intensive feeding trials, metabolism studies, as well as physiology and transgenic research. In addition, the complex contains a meat science technology center to support meat science teaching and research. Cooperative research is conducted at the Richard B. Russell Agricultural Research Center, Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory, College of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Foods and Nutrition, and Department of Food Science.
Tifton Campus
To facilitate resesarch activities in Tifton, the department has animal production units located at the Tifton campus, Alapaha Range Station, and Irwinville Bull Evaluation Center.
Eatonton Beef Research Unit
The Eatonton Beef Research Unit consists of approximately 1,900 acres in Eatonton, Ga. The farm was transferred to Animal and Dairy Science management in 2012.
Equine Unit
The Equine Unit, housed at the Livestock Instructional Arena, consists of a covered arena, outdoor arena, and indoor, climate controlled arena with seating for 395 people that is handicap accessible. The unit also includes a classroom with state of the art technology as well a drop down projector screen and audio/visual capabilities in the indoor arena. A kitchen, offices, and a conference room are also a part of the unit. Approximately 30 horses are managed on the farm, and are mainly used for teaching and undergraduate research purposes. Approximately four student workers are employed at the farm throughout the year.
Meat Science Technology Center
The Meat Science Technology Center is a fully functional meat animal processing facility that is federally (USDA) inspected. The main purpose of the MSTC is to facilitate teaching, outreach and research education in the areas of meat animal production, meat science and muscle biology.