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See how the Ontario Beef Research Centre – Elora facilitates research that drives innovation and supports the sustainability and prosperity of the beef sector in Ontario and Canada.
Ontario Beef Research Centre – Elora
The Ontario Beef Research Centre – Elora is a unique, state-of-the-art, 233,000-square foot research centre that is a world-class platform for discovery, learning and outreach. It is the result of a vibrant collaboration among Agricultural Research and Innovation Ontario, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, the University of Guelph and the Ontario beef industry. It is owned by Agricultural Research and Innovation Ontario and managed by U of G through the Ontario Agri-Food Innovation Alliance.
The Elora site of the Ontario Beef Research Centre features:
- Two cow-calf barns, accommodating 288 mature cows and 120 replacement heifers, and including:
- 48 group-housing pens for cow-calf pairs
- 20 maternity and special needs pens
- 20 group-housing pens for replacement heifers
- One feedlot barn with 24 pens, accommodating 288 animals
- Four animal care and handling facilities with five top-of-the-line hydraulic chutes
- 280 digital feed intake monitoring systems and 16 creep feeders for calves
- 121 hectares of managed pasture for rotational grazing
- Four laboratory spaces, including a sample storage lab and a clean lab for genomics research
- A meeting room and office space
Research areas and outcomes
Research at the Ontario Beef Research Centre in Elora leads to improved growth and efficiency and productive, healthy herds. Areas of research include animal health and welfare, feed, nutrition, genetics and genomics, management and technology, reproduction, behaviour and performance. See current research studies.
Tours
Please contact the research station outreach coordinator for more information:
Take a virtual tour of the Ontario Beef Research Centre - Elora
Pasture
The site has access to 121 hectares of pasture across four plots. Typically, cows and replacement heifers spend from mid-May to mid-October on pasture unless they are required to stay indoors for research trials.
Cow-calf housing
The facility consists of two identical state-of-the-art barns. The cow-calf housing section has 24 pens and can accommodate six cow-calf pairs each, for a capacity of up to 144 cows, or 288 across both barns.
Handling area
Designed to follow recommended best-practices for cattle handling, the Handling Area is an integral part of this research facility.
Maternity area
The maternity section includes twenty maternity and special needs pens. Cows that have calved or those in need of bed rest are brought here and given one of these spacious enclosures.
Precision Feed Facility
The Precision Feed Facility is the latest addition to the world-class platform at the Elora Research Station. See how it’s making a difference to research. Download the descriptive transcript.
Contact Us
Technical Foreman: Tysson Amidon
Ontario Beef Research Centre
tamidon@uoguelph.ca
Manager: Joe Parkinson
joe.parkinson@uoguelph.ca