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Department of Animal and Food Science

Animal Science Off-Campus Facilities

View of the main building of the AgScience Center from outside in the winer. This is one of the many off-campus facilities for student learning.

Main Building

The main building consists of an amphitheater style classroom, a large commons/foyer area, a large indoor arena, and the nutrition labs. The classroom and commons are used for class lectures and other student group learning experiences. They are also used for group meetings such as student gatherings, producer meetings, and FFA meetings.

The arena area is used mostly for live animal lab experiences involving the behavior and handling classes and the production classes. The nutrition labs consist of two rooms called the Metabolism lab and In Vitro lab. These rooms allow for teaching animal nutritional principles and analyzing the nutrient content of various feeds.
Image of the animal handling building from the outside in Spring

Animal Handling

The animal handling facility has two major sections. The first is the reproductive section where mostly bovine reproduction principles are taught and learned. The other is the bovine working section, which includes a functioning squeeze chute and crowd alley. This area is used to work the cattle herds as needed for herd health programs, disease diagnostics and therapeutics, and other husbandry procedures.

This area gives the students a hands-on learning experience in all these facets of animal handling and production. It is also equipped with two indoor horse stalls and an equine stock for handling and working the equine species.
Image of the quarantine building from the outside.

Quarantine Building

The quarantine area is used to keep new animals that are brought to the Ag Science Center separate and divided from our existing herds for a period of time. This is necessary to make certain the new animals are not incubating contagious diseases that may infect our healthy animals if mixed too quickly.
Erica Crabb kneeling down to pet a small calf

Heifer Development Building

This building was designed to show the principles of raising calves from suckling neonates to mature para-parturient first-calf heifers ready to go into the production herd. This building is also used as extra indoor pens for other species, like equine, if situations and circumstances require.
New piglets at the Ag Science Center.

Swine Building

This facility is designed to show and teach all stages of the porcine life and production cycle, from breeding to farrowing to feeding and finishing.
New chicks at the Agriculture Science Center.

Poultry Building

This unit is designed to show the two major components of chicken production. Those components are the layers (egg production) and the broilers (meat production). The layer room has laying boxes and access to an outdoor run. The broiler room is set up to be able to control temperature and environment for maximum growing efficiency.
Sheep and lambs at the newly dedicated Agriculture Science Center.

Sheep Building

The sheep area has multiple outdoor sheltered pens that allow feeding the mature sheep and lambs in a feedlot type environment. This allows teaching of ovine nutritional principles.

There is also the sheep building which is used mostly for the pairing of the ewes and newborn lambs during the lambing seasons. The pairing process is accomplished with the use of modular lambing pens (jugs) where the ewes and lambs are confined together until the lambs are strong enough to be moved to larger outdoor pens. At other times besides lambing, the building has various other uses including broiler processing.
Some of the corrals at the New Livestock Center.

The Feedlot Pens

There are multiple larger sheltered pens for the feeding of cattle and horses. These pens are used to teach nutrition and feeding principles. Associated with these pens are eight Grow Safe nodes, or stations, that allow the close control and monitoring of feed consumption, especially by the bovine species.

Other Facilities

Image of some of the other facilities at the Agriculture Science Center from outside in Spring

The "Hoop Building"

This is a cloth covered Quonset-type building that is used for equipment and material storage.

The Mechanical Shop

As the name implies, this is the building where equipment is maintained and repaired as well as tools stored and maintenance supplies inventoried.

The Equipment Storage Building

This is an enclosed, heated, two-bay equipment parking garage where the tractors and the feed wagons are kept when not being used. This is especially valuable in Idaho winters when the freezing temperatures make starting and operating the equipment more difficult.

The Hay Sheds

These structures consist of only a roof with no enclosed walls. Their purpose is to keep the rain and snow off of the baled hay and straw which helps preserve the quality and nutritional value of the stored materials.

The Feed Commodity Bays

This semi-enclosed facility is a feed storage area that consists of multiple bays, or bins, where various types of finer chopped and processed feeds can be stored and protected from the elements to help maintain quality.

The Feed Mill Building

This is a feed and mineral storage facility that is totally enclosed and protected from the elements. This is for bagged minerals and processed feeds that need more protection to prevent damage, spoilage, and wastage.

The Irrigated Pastures

These pastures and forage plots are located north of the buildings. They are pivot-irrigated agricultural land used for raising forage crops and providing summer/fall pastures for the grazing livestock. These also allow a hands-on experience in some of the forage crop and grazing sciences.