ADS Department Head Letter

Dear Animal and Dairy Science friends,

One of the things I want to explain in this article is the size and scope of the department. Training students in Animal and Dairy Science requires hands-on, experiential learning, as well as production farms for research and graduate education. The farms we manage are our laboratories for production research, graduate education, and undergraduate teaching. We hire 50 to 70 undergraduates per year to help run our Athens operations. Many of these students have no prior experience working with farm animals or in a meat processing facility, so we rely on our dedicated farm and facility managers to do the training. However, the farms provide valuable experience to our students while paying them.

Many people think that we operate on appropriated funds with no business decisions needed. This is, in fact, incorrect. We operate each of our eight farms, Federally Inspected Meat Science and Technology Center, and Large Animal Research Unit for biomedical research, largely on revenue from sales and indirect cost recovery from grants. In Athens, we have swine, beef, sheep, dairy, and horse farms. We have beef farms in Eatonton, Tifton, and Alapaha. These farms are our laboratories for production research, graduate education, and undergraduate teaching.

ADS Farms and Facilities:

• Double Bridges Beef: 55 fall calving cows
• Double Bridges Dairy: 145 milking cows (90 Holstein, 55 Jersey)
• Double Bridges Sheep: 60 ewes
• Double Bridges Swine: 100 sow farrow to finish operation
• Athens Horse: 25 horses
• Eatonton Beef: 550 spring calving cows and bred heifers
• Alapaha Beef: 120 cows and bred heifers
• Tifton Beef: 120 cows and bred heifers
• Meat Science and Technology Center: Inspected meat processing and retail sales with approximately 350 market hogs, 100 cattle, and 30 lambs harvested and processed annually
• Large Animal Research Unit (LARU): Swine facility for biomedical research

Improving the department’s ability to be self-sustaining from a corn and forage standpoint has been one of our long-term goals for economic reasons, such as paying $10.70/bushel for corn at the Athens dairy during the winter of 2022. Operational efficiency at the ADS farms is our goal, and clearing land, while bringing our soils up to fertilization and liming recommendations, is a huge job with 2000 acres of forage and row crop production. In Athens, encroachment of trees and brush into previously productive grazing and cropping land severely limited our capacity for silage production.

In 2023, we purchased a government surplus D-7 bulldozer with the ultimate goal of putting over 140 acres back into production. The goal is to improve operational efficiency by reducing the need for purchased feed, improving morale, and improving learning opportunities for our students. Since 2023, we have cleared approximately 50 acres that are now in corn or forage production. This year, we have 150 acres of corn for silage. We commercially plant and harvest the corn, as each can be done in two days, which gives a much higher quality silage. In 2023, we had a yield of 16 tons per acre, and in 2024, we had 12 tons per acre. This reduces our need for purchased corn, as approximately 8,500 to 10,000 bushels of corn were in the corn silage. Improvements in milk quantity and quality have been significant since the change, and the UGA Teaching Dairy was profitable last fiscal year. As we all know, rainfall is critical, and dry years occur, so the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences paid for the construction of a 17-acre irrigation pond on the dairy farm. This will allow for the irrigation of our cropping ground at the dairy, which will make us much less impacted during drought years.

Over the past three years, cattle and milk prices have been good, allowing us to make significant strides in upgrading our facilities and operations by strategically reinvesting our revenue into infrastructure, equipment, and land improvements. Despite being one of the most expensive departments in CAES, we’re proud to say that a substantial portion of our upgrades are funded directly from farm sales revenue. From fencing and fertilizer to major equipment purchases and facility repairs, we’re making forward-looking investments that support both research and production. 

Some key highlights:

• Over 50 acres of land cleared and put into silage production at Double Bridges—with more to come.
• Nearly $100,000 saved in corn expenditures by producing our own corn silage.
• Major upgrades across farms, including new vehicles, farm equipment, fencing supplies, water and irrigation systems, and dairy equipment.

We are required to operate a balanced budget. Thus, our revenue generated through sales is put back directly into our operations. In fiscal year 2024 and 2025 (with July 1 being the start of the fiscal year), we had a revenue of over $3.1 million and $3.3 million, respectively, and this money went right back into funding our operations. Thank you for the tremendous support we’ve received from alumni and the agricultural community!

As always, if you have questions or concerns or want a tour for a prospective student, please feel free to reach out to me at ffluharty@uga.edu.

Sincerely,

Francis Fluharty
Animal and Dairy Science Department Head