Livestock

The purpose of the livestock operation at the Freeman Center:

1). Educational: The Department of Agricultural Sciences uses laboratory animals for teaching and research in both Animal Science and pre-veterinary concentrations. 

2). Resources: The livestock operation generates a nominal amount of income to aid with ranch operating expenses.

The university operates the Freeman Center as a cow-calf cattle operation, but the teaching program and research are our priority.

In the cow-calf operation, there are eighty mature crossbred cows: a cross between Hereford, Angus, Brahman, Gelbvieh and now Santa Gertrudis. We split our calving season into two groups to help supply both Fall and Spring semester classes with cows at different points in their breeding cycles. The Freeman Center also has our own Registered Santa Gertrudis herd and Cattle show team. Current research has shifted to the Santa Gertrudis breed; thus, we have been increasing more registered Santa Gertrudis genetics Via Artificial Insemination and Embryo Transfers into our cross bred herds. This gives us 50% Santa Gertrudis with our crossbred cows, and with embryo transfers we are achieving 100% full blood Santa Gertrudis calves from our crossbred recip cows. The ranch is also currently the home of two full blood Santa Gertrudis bulls that are used for Natural service breeding or “Cover Bulls” for our Artificial Insemination and Embryo Transfer programs. The ranch houses an additional seven other Santa Gertrudis bulls that will be utilized in future breeding projects.