Released April 5, 2007
AMES, Iowa -- Improvements are underway at the main horse barns on the Iowa State University campus. The barns, located at the corner of Pammel and Stange on the north side of campus, are well known by current and former students.
Two wings of the main barn were built in 1923, with a center addition built in 1926 to form a U-shape. After nearly eight decades of use by horses and students, the building has shown much wear and tear. Recently, Jacqueline Andre Schmeal provided a gift to Iowa State to help begin needed repairs.
Schmeal, founder of the Iowa Barn Foundation and daughter of Floyd Andre who was dean of the ISU College of Agriculture from 1949 to 1972, provided a gift of $5,000. Her gift aided renovation work that was already underway with a commitment of $150,000 from both Iowa State University and the ISU College of Agriculture.
“Our equine program is growing and we see greater expansion over the next few years,” said Maynard Hogberg, chair of the Department of Animal Science. “The horse barns are symbolic of our program and were looking shabby. The gift and additional funding from within the university has allowed us to improve the maintenance and appearance of the barns.”
Peggy Miller-Auwerda is an associate professor in the animal science department and heads the department’s equine program. “I appreciate the repairs that have been made at the barns. They are beautiful buildings and the repairs enhance what people see when they visit,” she said.
Miller-Auwerda teaches six equine classes, with part or all of five of the classes at the horse barns. Each fall semester, 50 students enroll in Equine Science, a lecture/laboratory course designed to increase a student’s knowledge of horses and the basics of the horse industry. In a related practicum, students gain first-hand experience in management of a horse facility and preparing horses for sale.
A fall class titled Training The Horse allows 15 students to be responsible for training a horse before returning it to its owner. In Equine Systems Management, students learn about management of horse operations, business issues such as liability and insurance, nutritional management of horses, and current concepts in reproductive management of horses. About 40 students take this class each spring.
In Equine Reproduction, students gain first-hand experience in management of a horse facility and breeding horses.
Horsemanship and Equitation is the one course held off-campus because there is no enclosed facility that can accommodate the indoor riding that’s necessary.
“The number of students interested in horses has grown,” Miller-Auwerda said. “All our horse classes are full or near capacity and I see this growth continuing.”
Horses are housed year-round in the barns and the paddocks near the barns, with the type and number of horses on-site dependent on the time of year. An open house is held each October where students from the Equine Science class present posters and students from the Training the Horse class perform a training demonstration. Another extension activity is an annual breeding workshop.
Some research also takes place in the barns. A high-speed treadmill in the main barn is used occasionally for evaluating racehorses and for assessing how nutrition affects performance. Four horses have a flexible tube, called a cannula, placed in a pouch connected to their large intestine. These tubes make it possible to assess the effect of different nutritional products on the intestine’s microbial environment.
Hogberg said he is grateful to Jacqueline Andre Schmeal for her donation. “These horse barns add to the pride we have in our equine program at Iowa State and this work has helped make them look presentable again,” he said. “These horse barns will continue to be an important part of our teaching program.”
--30--
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/livestock/horses/
Contact: Susan Thompson, communications, (515) 294-0705, sander@iastate.edu
