Penn State’s Beef Cattle Center is perhaps the most easily recognizable of the University’s animal operations. As motorists drive toward Beaver Stadium on Park Avenue, Black Angus cattle dot the rolling terrain like moving inkblots. But those cattle are just a small part of the picture. About 200 cows, steers, and bulls are managed on 150 acres of pasture at the beef center, a stark, low-slung building off Orchard Road. Another 200 cattle are housed at Haller Farm, a pasture farm beyond the University Park Airport, where researchers study grazing.

In Pennsylvania, beef farmers either raise calves until they are weaned and sold to large-scale feedlots, or graze cattle until they reach full growth and are sold for breeding stock. Herd manager Don Nichols says the beef center acts as both calf-raising operation and feedlot. Student workers feed the cattle twice a day, with the rest of the work divided between Nichols and his assistant herdsman. The central feature of the beef building is a large classroom, outfitted with desks and a wood-chip floor, where many of the facility’s cattle and sheep become the focus of classes in animal judging and anatomy. The college also holds purebred auctions and other livestock events there. “On a feedlot, the ultimate purpose is to produce beef,” Nichols says. “Here, the ultimate purpose is to teach and find meaningful research results.”

Beef cattle research can range from feeding test trials to high-tech genetic programs. Staff also test equipment, diet supplements, and other products. In recent years, Nichols helped researchers determine the usefulness of diets that include bakery waste, tomato silage, and other nontraditional ingredients.

A color-coded, segregated feeding bin system makes it easy for Nichols to track diets. Researchers also ask Nichols to oversee genetic trials that track, evaluate, and monitor animals from birth to slaughter. “About 25 percent of our animals go to the feedlot, and the remaining 75 percent are used or sold as breeding stock,” says Nichols, who also oversees the 15 Angus bulls in Penn State’s beef breeding program. “We handle our livestock much more than a typical beef producer does. We use the animals for teaching, breeding, shows, and other activities. In the commercial world, many beef cattle on the range are lucky to see their owner’s face once a week.”

Amazing Grazing Facility

In Haller Farm manager Pete Le Van’s case, it’s his colleagues who are lucky to see his face once a week. Le Van is the only staff person assigned to the 200-acre Haller beef farm. The farm, which houses 200 head of Angus and crossbred beef cattle, became a Penn State facility in the 1960s. “Undergraduate students help out occasionally, but I’m out here by myself most of the time,” he says.

Le Van’s equipment list is minimal: one tractor, one pasture cutter, and one fertilizer applicator. “We’re kind of reinventing what our grandparents did with low cost and low inputs,” he says. “Raising beef cattle requires less equipment, shelter, and management than other types of animal agriculture. If visitors and beef producers come out here for a field day and see that I can succeed without a lot of heavy machinery and glitz, they realize they can do it too.”

Le Van grazes about 70 cow-calf pairs. He times his breeding program so that the cows give birth in April, giving the animals about seven months of high-quality pasture grazing. When calves are between 12 and 14 months old, Le Van selects heifers to be bred. About 75 percent of the Haller beef calves born each year are marketed to meat processors. Most of the research projects originate from animal scientists Harold Harpster, Erskine Cash, or John Comerford, although agronomist Marvin Hall, USDA agronomist Matt Sanderson, and veterinary scientist Tom Drake also use the herd.

The Haller acreage is divided by high-tensile fencing into two-acre paddocks, which can be subdivided into half-acre research plots. Le Van oversees projects such as using cookie waste as a supplemental feed, or using chicory as grazing forage. Most of the pastures are used to grow orchardgrass, supporting a long-term agronomy research project to test 75 different orchardgrass varieties for grazing suitability.