Sheep Unit
The 350-ewe flock is located
in 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.
Adjacent to the Nutrition Center
are grain bins and silos that are computer operated and linked
ration mixers. Rations are conveyed into a PTO-driven mixer
wagon and augured into concrete bunks inside the barn or into
fence-lined pasture bunks. The Office Complex contains a multi-purpose
room for university classes and extension meetings, a research
sample prep laboratory, and an office area. Adjacent to the
Office Complex are two "efficiency apartments" for
undergraduate student workers.
Sixteen, 3-acre pastures surround
the central location in a wagon wheel configuration. All exterior
fencing is electric, nine-strand, high tensile. These pastures
will allow evaluation of forages by sheep produced in different
management systems. Other land use include eight pastures
for mixed species grazing, six pastures for riparian grazing
research, and four pastures to evaluate winter grazing programs.
The Sheep Unit is designed to
maximize forage evaluation research. Opportunities are available
to conduct intensive research in the areas of milk production,
creep feeding, digestibility, growing-finishing, and wool
production. Many of the animals will be used for simultaneous
"hands-on" undergraduate and extension education
activities.
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