Facilities

Wise Center

The Wise Center houses the the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, and the University Television Center. Animal and Dairy Sciences occupies the fourth floor of the 360,000 square foot building.
Location of the Wise Center on the campus map.

Ballew Hall

Ballew Hall may not look like a neighborhood butcher shop, but its Meats Laboratory produces some of the finest beef and pork products around-and offers them for sale to the public. The lab is operated for teaching and to research meats in the Animal and Dairy Science and the Food Science, Nutrition and Health Promotion departments. Products from those activities are then put on sale to the public at the MAFES Sales Store. These include ribeye steaks, ground chuck, sirloin tip roasts, and many other cuts.
Location of Ballew Hall on the campus map

Bearden Dairy Research Center

The Joe Bearden Dairy Research Center supports departmental teaching and research activities along with providing the students of Animal and Dairy Sciences contact with modern techniques in Animal Agriculture as well as the opportunity for practical work experience. These experiences give the students in this curriculum insight into many technical challenges associated with the dairy industry.

H.W. Essig Nutrition Lab in the James W. Scales building

The H.W. Essig Nutrition Lab was named after a former professor and animal scientist in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences.
Location of the James W. Scales building on thecampus map

H. H. Leveck Animal Research Center

The H. H. Leveck Animal Research Center (referred to as South Farm by MSU personnel) provides a very important land resource which supports departmental teaching and various research activities associated with Animal Science curriculum. It provides the students of Animal and Dairy Sciences contact with modern techniques in animal agriculture as well as the opportunity for practical work experience. These experiments give the students insight into many technical challenges associated with the animal production industry.
Location of the H. H. Leveck Animal Research Center on the campus map.

Experiment Stations

The Brown Loam Branch Station, located in Raymond, has focused research on beef cattle production, grassland management and utilization, agronomic row crop production, and conservation management. Beef cattle programs include research on cattle behavior and influences on growth performance, immunity and production efficiency; as well as animal breeding, nutrition, heifer development, A.I. synchronization, forage systems and stocker management. Beef cattle numbers peak at about 900 head, consisting of spring and fall breeding herds of 350 cows and approximately 300 stockers grazed each year.

The Prairie Research Unit also has research focused on forages and livestock. New novel endophyte tall fescues are being evaluated under grazing conditions with stockers. A variety of weaning methods are being evaluated including the use of nose-clips and fence-line weaning.

The White Sands Unit has 440 acres and was originally a tung research unit operated cooperatively by USDA and Mississippi state. Currently it is the main beef cattle research unit with about 150 mature cows, 11 bulls and 54 replacement heifers. The beef cattle research is based on cow-calf production, which is the most common beef cattle enterprise in south Mississippi.