The sprawling new Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Livestock Evaluation Center on Route 45 just east of the Ag Progress Days site at Rock Springs is a one-of-a-kind facility with deep historical roots at Penn State.

For nearly 40 years, the state Department of Agriculture (PDA) and the University have cooperated and collaborated to test meat animal performance and improve the genetic makeup of meat animals in Pennsylvania and the Northeast. From 1966 until the $6.5 million new complex was completed in 2003, the livestock evaluation program was housed in a building adjacent to the Agricultural Arena on the University Park campus.

What makes the program and the facility special is that sires of four different kinds of meat animals are evaluated there: beef cattle bulls, swine boars, ram sheep, and buck goats. “This facility is absolutely unique,” says Glenn Eberly, an animal scientist who has managed the center for PDA for the past 20 years. “This is the only facility in the world where testing of four meat animal species is carried out.

At the sprawling new Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Livestock Evaluation Center on Route 45, just east of the Ag Progress Days site at Rock Springs, the performance of the sires of meat animals is tested—cattle bulls, swine boars, ram sheep, and buck goats. The testing of four species of meat animals makes the $6.5 million facility unique in the world.

“Private owners consign animals over to us and we raise them all the same way, removing all environmental factors that could affect their development,” Eberly says, “so we can accurately and objectively evaluate their growth, feed efficiency, and carcass qualities using methods such as ultrasound examinations.”

Owners of animals judged to be genetically superior can sell them to other producers or put them back into their herds to enrich the gene pool. “If sires are judged to be high performance, it makes the animals more valuable on the market,” says Eberly. “Poorly performing animals are returned to the breeder. Only the best-performing sires are sold to the public.”
The 117,000-square-foot evaluation center contains a sales arena with seating for 700 people, a conference room that seats 100, a food service area, a self-contained hog unit, a large display barn, pens for cattle, sheep, and goats, and an isolation barn/sick pen area.

“The new building has given us a lot of opportunity to expand on what we were able to do at the old facility,” says John Comerford. A Penn State animal scientist who has been involved with the program for the last 17 years, he currently chairs the livestock evaluation center’s beef technical committee.

“The center plays an important role in showcasing cattle. A lot of producers will tell you that for every tested bull they sell, they will sell three more as a result of the exposure their farm gets from participating in the program. The program has had a lot of success in putting good genetics back into herds, and allows producers to compare their cattle genetics to others.”
The livestock center’s annual bull sales—held on the last Friday in March in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Beef Expo the last few years—invariably draw big crowds. “The first sale of bulls in the facility was one of the most successful ever. There was strong demand and the average price was over $2,000 for the 72 bulls that were sold. Consignors were pleased with not only the prices they received, but also the reduced cost of testing the bulls due to the increased efficiencies and better rations in the new Livestock Evaluation Center.”

The livestock evaluation program was started by Penn State and PDA experts who believed significant improvements could and should be made in the state’s meat animal gene pool, Eberly points out. “This group of people had a vision for something they could do to benefit the agricultural community in this state and the Northeast,” he explains. “They developed a way to assist the livestock industry to improve their genetic makeup of animals.

“When the program first started, it was a shared responsibility. Initially, the University provided the expertise and county extension educators selected the animals that were brought in. Penn State also provided clerical support, grounds-keeping, and other services. As budgets got tighter, it evolved into a PDA program. But Penn State animal scientists still provide consultation, oversight, and collaboration.”

The technical committee that Comerford chairs oversees the standards and rules governing what animals will be accepted, schedules, and feed rations. “There has always been a partnership between PDA and the University on decisions about livestock evaluation,” he said. “As budgets have become more austere at Penn State, PDA has taken over entirely the operation of the facility, but we work together on the procedural things and support each other.”

Comerford notes that the program is adding new features. “This year, we will have a steer test,” he says. “Owners of steers will be able to consign them to a feeding trial at the center, and the actual performance data of the progeny of Pennsylvania-bred sires can be compared with other breeders in the test, as well as with results from similar programs in other states. We are planning embryo transfer and heifer development programs as well.”

The livestock evaluation program has resulted in significant improvements in the genetic makeup of Pennsylvania meat animals, according to animal scientist Ken Kephart, who has been involved in swine evaluation at the center for years. “The program has long been a way for commercial producers to improve the genetic quality of their herds,” he says. “Because the best-performing animals are sold to the public, they pass on their genes to their progeny, and the effect over the decades has been obvious.”

Eberly says the program’s impact in the last 15 to 20 years has been nothing short of tremendous. “People have been doing animal husbandry for thousands of years, but we have improved the genetics of meat animals by 20 percent or so in less than two decades.”

—Jeff Mulhollem