Animal Science Research
Many of our animal science faculty hold joint appointments with AgriLife Research, the research arm of the land-grant system in agriculture. These researchers are committed to serving the people of Texas and the world through vital, basic, and applied research in the areas of agriculture, life sciences, and natural resources.
Areas of Research Focus
Animal Behavior
The animal behavior and welfare research program at Texas A&M aims to understand the impact of husbandry and management practices on captive animal health, productivity, and human and animal behavior and to use this knowledge to inform husbandry practices, develop behavioral phenotypes, and refine technology development.
Animal Breeding
Animal Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics focuses on improving livestock using all genetic, genomic, and statistical tools. Those include the utilization of breeds and mating systems, pedigrees, quantitative methodology, and assessment of internal and external variations to animals’ DNA. Efforts include predicting genetic merit and characterizing the variation and gene activity in livestock traits. An important focus of these projects is training graduate and undergraduate students.
Animal Nutrition
Meeting livestock nutritional requirements is extremely important in maintaining acceptable performance of neonatal, growing, finishing and breeding animals.
Beef Cattle
Beef cattle research at Texas A&M covers a wide spectrum of topics to provide scientific information to Texas beef producers. Current programs focus on production topics such as nutrition, management, breeding and selection, and reproduction.
Dairy Science
The focus of dairy research is to generate science-based knowledge to address challenges faced by the dairy industry including water and labor scarcity, manure management, and enhancing dairy cattle welfare and performance.
Equine Science
Texas A&M strives to conduct equine research spanning many scientific disciplines, including animal wellbeing, endocrinology, nutrition, metabolism, physiology, reproduction, genomics, and human-animal interactions.
Food Microbiology
The Department conducts various research efforts to support the food industry in ensuring the microbiological safety of fresh and processed foods. This includes both animal and plant-derived foods, as well as helping processors maintain sanitary food manufacturing practices. Food microbiology encompasses both the safety and quality of foods and food microbiology research at Texas A&M ranges from applied projects on food safety and fermentations to basic studies on bacterial genomics and microbial communities.
Meat Science and Technology
Meat science researchers at TAMU continue to set the standard for meat science research, with current research projects focusing on food safety, meat quality, as well as participating in projects such as the National Beef Quality Audit.
Physiology of Reproduction
The mission of the Physiology of Reproduction Program is to research the fundamental elements of reproductive biology necessary for the development of systems to enhance the efficiency of animal reproduction and productivity.
Small Ruminants
Sheep, goats, mohair and the associated industries are a major agricultural enterprise in Texas. Texas leads the nation in lamb and wool production and is internationally famous for its wool and mohair.
Swine
The swine industry provides high-quality protein essential for a healthy human population. Pigs are also excellent animal models for biomedical research to address the basis for health and diseases in both humans and other animals. Research programs focus on understanding the biochemistry and physiology of gestating, lactating, neonatal, and post-weaning swine to optimize the production of this agriculturally and biomedically important animal system.
Latest Research Updates
Animal Science Extension
Also interested in Animal Science Extension? Follow this link to learn more about Animal Science Extension.