Facilities
Beef Center at the New Deal Farm
The Department of Animal and Food Sciences Beef Cattle Center, located at the Texas Tech University Research Farm, New Deal, TX was built in 1976. The unit consisted of ten pens of various size, allowing for multiple research trials and teaching. The unit's primary research focus was cow/calf management and beef cattle genetics. Teaching involved hands-on labs and demonstrations. In 1998, the Research Center for Receiving Cattle, sponsored by Alltech, Inc., was built to further research in the area of receiving/backgrounding beef cattle.
Burnett Center Feedlot
The Burnett Center is located at the Northeast Lubbock County Field Laboratories, 15 miles north of Lubbock and 6 miles east of the town of New Deal. The feedlot is an important resource to the feedlot industry and provides significant educational benefits to Animal and Food Science students. For more information, visit the Burnett Center website.
Food Engineering Laboratory
The food engineering lab houses a dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA Q800, TA Instruments) and a modulated differential scanning calorimeter (DSC, Q100, TA Instruments). DMA is being used for studying the dynamic viscoelastic and textural properties of solid food materials under a wide range of processing temperatures from sub-zero to above 100 deg C. The DSC is being used for studying transitions (such as melting, crystallization, glass-transition etc.) in foods and biopolymers by measuring the changes in temperature and heat flow rate.
The lab also conducts research on developing computer models for studying transport processes in foods. It houses several, windows , macintosh and linux based workstations for solving the transport equations using finite element. It houses a Comsol software server for solving the transport equations in a user-friendly finite elements package. The server can be accessed by the food engineering research group from remote sites to access the Comsol software. For further information, please contact Dr. Pawan Takhar.
Analytical Laboratory
The AFS Analytical Laboratory has a full compliment of analytical equipment for the determination of food and feed composition and quality. Instrumentation includes: gas chromatograph/mass spec (with sniffer port), atomic absorption spectrophotometer, LECO nitrogen analyzer, proximate analysis capabilities, colorimetry, Instron, spectrophotometers, refractometers, water activity meter, viscometers, and HPLC. The Analytical Laboratory has the capability to conduct a wide range of food and feed analysis. Contact Dr. Leslie Thompson (leslie.thompson@ttu.edu) for more information.
Food Micro Lab
The Food Microbiology Laboratory is part of International Center for Food Industry Excellence, which is a cooperative program between CASNR and the College of Human Sciences. For more information, visit the Food Micro website.
Horse Center
For more information, visit the Horse Center website.
Meat Science Lab
For more information, visit the Meat Science website.
University Therapeutic Riding Center
Formed as a coordinated effort between CASNR and University Medical Center, UTRC provides therapeutic horseback riding classes and hippotherapy to over many clients every week. We serve children and adults with all types of physical, mental and emotional disabilities. In our program, our clients see substantial progress. The rhythmic movement of the horse naturally moves the body in a manner similar to the human gait, improving posture, balance and muscle control. Every rider gains self confidence and takes that back into his or her world. For more information, visit the UTRC website.