Research Facilities

The Department of Animal Sciences has a wide array of modern research facilities and resources available for the in depth examination of molecular processes, whole animal metabolism, and multi-faceted systems involving animals. Laboratories, research farms, on-campus resource facilities, and off-campus research stations are all used to tackle both applied and basic problems related to animal production and animal-derived food processing.

In addition to on campus research facilities, the Department operates several research farms in the greater Lexington area. The 1500 acre Animal Research Center (ARC) in nearby Woodford County is currently home to the Beef Research Unit and Sheep Unit. Dairy and poultry research are currently conducted at the Coldstream Farm located just north of Lexington. Maine Chance is the home of the Equine Research Unit.

Part of our mission is to conduct research relevant to a variety of production systems and environments. Therefore, several off-campus research farms are located throughout the state. The Eden Shale Farm in Owen County has activities related to beef cattle management. Beef nutrition and swine research are conducted at the West Kentucky Substation Farm in Princeton, Kentucky.

Maine Chance Farm:  Equine Research Unit

The Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Kentucky operates a 100 acre horse farm for teaching and research. The farm is located about 10 miles from the main University of Kentucky campus. The farm includes two separate barn areas with more than 15 pastures/paddocks of various sizes. The farm routinely maintains 60 to 80 horses, depending upon season and research needs. The farm is staffed by a full time manager with an M.S. degree, a full time animal technician and a number of student workers.

Animal Research Center: Beef Unit

The Animal Science Beef Unit at the UK Animal Research Center located in Woodford County, approximately 15 miles from campus, provides state of the art facilities for conducting beef cattle production and management research. The Intensive Research building provides space for offices and laboratories, as well as 36 individually housed animals, a surgery suite, and animal handling and support, all with environmental control. Production facilities include 48 pens for feeding experiemnts, 60 Calan gates for individual feeding and 24 individual pens for more intensive sampling or feeding studies. A feed center for diet preparation and a handling facility for sorting and weighing animals surrounds the center on approximately 450 acres including 32, 7.5 acre pastures for grazing nutrition experiments.

The 350-ewe flock is located on 110 acres of the 1500-acre Animal Research Center. Sitting in the center of this acreage is a Lambing Barn, Nutrition Center, office Complex, and Student Quarters. The 336 x 48-foot Lambing Barn contains 12 pens, each with enough square footage to maintain 20 ewes and their twin lambs. Each pen opens to a 32 x 44-foot gravel "runout." These pens will also be used for drylot lamb feeding. Four bays of 4 x 5-foot lambing pens are located in the center of the barn. Each bay can house 16 ewes and their newborns. These pens can be transformed into 32 individual lamb feeding pens. The entire barn is wired for computerization and video recording.

Coldstream Farm:  Poultry Unit

The UK Poultry Research Facility, located on the College of Agriculture's Coldstream Farm, is a vital part of teaching, research and extension programs in poultry science. It also provides support for other programs in Animal Sciences and other university departments.

The facility includes three layer-cage rooms with a combined capacity of 2,600 laying hens and two grower-cage rooms that hold 2,800 pullets. The cage rooms are equipped with a unique direct-cage ventilation system that provides a very uniform environment through each room. The cage rooms have heating, air conditioning and evaporative cooling to provide a high degree of environmental control throughout the year.

The Coldstream Dairy Research Farm Complex was originally constructed in the early 1960's. There have been many renovations and facility updates since then. The complex includes:

The University is categorized as a Research Category I instituition by the Carnegie Foundation. There are a wide variety of resources available for state-of-the-art research in many biological disciplines. Some of the major resources are:

• Macromolecular Structure Analysis Facility

• Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Center

• Flow Analysis and Cell Sorting Facilty

• Transgenic Mouse Facilty

• Advanced Science and Technology Commercialization Center

The entire campus is electronically connected via an Ethernet network. An IBM 9672 Parallel Enterprise Server and HP/Convex Exemplar X-Class Supercomputer are the focus of the centralized computing resources.

The University of Kentucky Library System has over 2 million volumes and receives over 23,000 periodical and serial titles. The W. T. Young Library houses the majority (1.2 million volumes) of the collection in 361,000 square feet on 37 miles of shelving. The Young Library is fully equipped to take advantage of electronic information technology: there are nearly 5,000 data jacks, 600 personal computers available for patrons and staff, 50 miles of fiber optic cable, and wireless network capability. The library system provides on-line catalog searching and other automated services throughout campus.