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Facilities

Frank Morrison Hall

Located at 507 Tower Avenue, with over 300 rooms and 133,000 square feet of floor space, Frank Morrison Hall is the campus home of the Department of Animal Science. In addition to offices and classrooms, the building contains some 25 research laboratories. The department has many other facilities, both on and off campus, which are used in fulfilling its teaching, research and extension missions. These are described briefly below.

 

Cornell Dairy Research and Education Center (CDREC) 

The Cornell Dairy Research and Education Center (CDREC), previously known as CURC, was established in 2013 to replace the former Teaching and Research Center, as a state-of-the-art, commercial-style dairy farm located 15 miles east of Cornell’s main campus. CDREC operates as a working dairy farm while serving as a platform for integrated, whole-farm research.

Home to 570 milking cows and housing for 400 heifers and calves, CDREC includes modern free-stall barns, a tie-stall barn for individual cow research, a centralized feed center, substantial silage storage, long-term manure storage and over 2,600 acres of cropland, pasture and woodlands.

Animal housing is designed for both cow comfort and research flexibility, allowing cows to be managed in large or small groups for replicated studies. Specialized research facilities support individual cow housing, controlled feeding, and intensive data collection, including metabolism stalls for digestion and physiology research.

Cows are milked in a double‑16 parallel milking parlor equipped for milk sampling and performance monitoring. Across the facility, state‑of‑the‑art ventilation, bedding, and heat‑abatement systems support animal health and productivity.

Together, this infrastructure supports Cornell’s leading research and extension programs in dairy nutrition and metabolism, animal health, precision dairy management, nutrient and manure management, environmental sustainability, genetics and whole‑farm systems research.

Sheep Flock

A flock of two groups of 100 ewes each is used to control vegetation at the Cascadilla Solar Farm about two miles from campus. Each group lambs 3 times in 2 years alternating with the other group so that lambing happens about every 120 days at the on campus Teaching Barn. This allows opportunities for students to gain sheep management experience and provides opportunities for access by researchers to sheep with wide ranges of maturity and reproductive status year-round. 

With Grade A milking facilities at the Teaching Barn, about 1/3 of the ewes have dairy (East Friesian and Lacaune) breeding genetics for research and opportunities for a student-run sheep dairy.

Equine Unit

This facility, located on campus near Morrison Hall, is used for studies requiring close monitoring of the subjects (horses and ponies). Larger numbers of horses, housed in the Cornell Equine Research Park, which is managed by the Veterinary College, are available for teaching and more extensive research programs.

Poultry Unit

Poultry research facilities, including individual and group cages, group floor plans, a chick unit, and a feed mixing center are adjacent to campus.

Large Animal Research and Teaching Unit (LARTU)

Located adjacent to Morrison Hall, LARTU provides excellent facilities for small numbers of large animals for intensive metabolic studies involving surgical preparation, isotopes, infusions and other procedures and requiring close monitoring of responses.

On Campus Teaching Barn

This unit provides short-term on-campus facilities for housing and managing dairy cattle and other farm animals used in teaching.