In the Carus Research facility in Wageningen, we have ten climate respiration chambers ranging in size from 0.3 to nearly 100 m3 and can be used for research into Energy metabolism (indirect calorimetry); Nutrition and digestion; Gas emission such as CO2, 13CO2, NH3 and CH4 or climate change. The rooms can be used for individually and group housed animals for numerous species (cow, pig, goat, sheep, horse, chicken). Carus also has an Aquatic Research facility, unique due to its aquatic respiration chambers, which provide the opportunity to perform continuous measurements and determine the metabolism of a group of fish. Although emphasis is on research with fish, respiration studies are also performed on corals and organisms such as sepia, seahorses, pipefish, sea urchins, periphyton and algae production. Carus also contains special soundproof behavioural observation areas, fitted with audio and video devises. In these areas behavioural studies of both livestock and companion animals can be performed. Finaly, the Wageningen Feed Processing Centre at Carus provides researches and industry with a unique ‘pilot plant’, available for experiments and research on animal feed science and process development, particularly useful in the fields of product quality, product improvement and GMP/HACCP.
Dairy Campus (Leeuwarden) is the leading research and training centre for dairy farming and the dairy supply chain. It consists of 500 dairy cows, six cowsheds, training and meeting facilities and 300 hectares of land. Each cowshed has its own research theme, such as animal feed, milk, manure or environment and is equipped with practical trial areas for different types of experiments. Among other things, our cowsheds and fields are used for: Animal feed and efficient feeding, Reducing emissions, Manure processing, Grass and soil, Grazing systems, Raising youngstock, Smart Farming, Housing and floors, Sustainable breeding, Lifespan and resilience, Water flows on a dairy farm, Biodiversity, Milk improvements and Green energy.
Agro-innovation center De Marke (Hengelo) is an experimental dairy farm for scientific agricultural research. Together with farmers and other partners, we work on circular agriculture, nature-inclusive agriculture, climate-robust agriculture and precision agriculture. The farm has a total area of 55 ha (11ha permanent grassland, 33 ha grassland and pasture, 22ha arable crops. Crop rotation: grass-clover – maize: 44 ha. Catch crop in maize: Italian rye grass. The farm has 85 milking cows, with 8,500 kg/yr/cow milk production. De Marke has an automated milking system, manure (slurry) fermentation, Bio-gas delivery to national gas distribution system, (fermented) Slurry separation (into liquid and solid fractions) and a manure refinery.
The HCU (High-Containment Unit) in Lelystad is designed to ensure that infectious agents cannot escape into the environment. This facility allows us to work on highly contagious pathogens up to human BSL-3 level and veterinary BSL-4 level. This includes foot-and-mouth disease virus, classical swine fever virus and avian influenza virus. The high-containment unit houses laboratory facilities that support research in different expertise areas like microbiology, immunology and pathology. In addition, animal facilities are included in the high-containment unit. This combination of laboratory and animal facilities offers possibilities for multidisciplinary research into BSL-3 and BSL-4 pathogens.