One of the most popular animal attractions at Penn State is the Sheep Center, located on Orchard Road next to the Beef Center. Between 300 and 500 ewes, rams, and visitor-friendly lambs are housed in the 1960s-era facility. Sheep unit manager Dick Kuzemchak is the only full-time employee assigned to the sheep, although he oversees five student workers who live in on-site dorms.

The Dorset breed was chosen for Penn State’s flock because they can produce lambs in both the spring and fall. For research, extension, and particularly for teaching, Penn State must have lambs available all year. Animal scientists use the sheep for feeding and grazing research that can be applied to all types of livestock. “For intensive nutrition studies, it’s a lot easier to handle a sheep than a 1,200-pound steer,” Kuzemchak explains. Most of the flock, however, is used to teach students in management, production, and livestock-judging courses. Some sheep are sent to the meats lab for classes in slaughtering and carcass evaluation.

Lambs are kept until they are one year old. At that time, Kuzemchak determines which lambs he will keep to replenish his breeding stock; the remaining lambs are sold as breeding stock. The sheep remain on Penn State pastures for most of the year, except for those sheep involved in feeding research. All breeding and lambing operations take place at the beef and sheep facility on Orchard Road. The bulk of the flock is grazed at two University pasture tracts behind Centre Community Hospital. Kuzemchak estimates he manages about 100 acres of pasture.

The facilities include a heated “lambing room,” where newborn lambs are housed for several days to bond with their mothers, and several rooms where individual animals can be monitored during research projects. Once the lambs are feeding properly, they move to other pens, where they are kept until they reach “market weight”—about 100 to 125 pounds. “Sheep grow very fast; they gain about a pound a day,” says Kuzemchak, who also attends national livestock shows to market the breeding animals produced at the center. “Our sheep have a reputation as one of the best purebred Dorset flocks in the country.”