The University of Kentucky's poultry research facility, located on the College of Agriculture's Coldstream farm, is a vital part of teaching, research and extension progreams in poultry science. It also provides support for other programs in Animal Sciences and other university departments.
The facility includes three layer-cage rooms with a combined capacity of 2,600 laying hens and two grower-cage rooms that hold 2,800 pullets. The cage rooms are equipped with a unique direct-cage ventilation system that provides a very uniform environment through each room. The cage rooms have heating, air conditioning and evaporative cooling to provide a high degree of environmental control throughout the year.
The facility also has two floor-pen rooms for maintaining chickens on litter in a total of 100 pens. The pen sizes can be varied and can be equipped with nests to accomodate laying or breeding hens to meet different experimental needs. The floor pen units can house approximately 2,400 growing chickens (broilers or pullets) or 800 breeder hens.
The laboratory section of the facility includes an egg storage room, equipment for processing eggs and poultry, and feed mixing equipment. This section also includes the incubator room and a meeting room.
This modern building provides excellet facilities for faculty and graduate students to conduct research aimed at improving poultry production. The facility aslo provides opportunities for interested undergraduate students to gain hands-on experience working with poultry.