Take a tour of our new palatability barn

We are now officially reopened for research since our ribbon cutting on Wednesday, January 15^th.  For the event, we hosted a group of senior management, staff and dignitaries on a tour of our new research facility, which started in our newly renovated palatability barn.  Here are some pictures to give you a “snap shot” of the experience. 

When you walk in the front door, you are greeted with our new lab space which is over twice the size of our previous area.  On the left, we have some Quick Facts about the horse unit.  Did you know we have run over 300 tests on our high speed treadmill?  And we currently feed 570 lbs of Purina horse feed to our own horses on the farm every day? And by the way, we are expecting 10 foals this year, but our first due date is March 1.

This large room also neatly stores and organizes our microscopes, centrifuge, sampling materials, weigh stations, health supplies and more.  We have so much new space, our shelves almost look bare, but we know they will be filled in no time.

Happy New Year, Happy New Barn!

Happy New Year everyone!  You may have noticed that we didn’t have a lot of blog posts directly from the Purina Animal Nutrition Center the second half of 2013, and that is because our palatability barn looked like this: 

Our team was really put to the test in 2013 as they managed horses and research projects despite bulldozers, cranes, jackhammers and all things construction related.  Furthermore, Mike, Andrea, John, Margaret and Tim literally joined the construction crew full force and were hands-on with all kinds of day to day prep, building and finishing work.  We could not have accomplished what we did without their willingness to learn, help and jump in on all kinds of projects from tear down to grass seeding.  I have often said that we have the greatest employees in the world at the research farm, and boy did this year prove it.  So we are very excited that our palatability barn now looks like this: