Foster Farms Poultry Education and Research Facility

The Fresno State - Foster Farms Poultry Education and Research Facility is the product of a true public-private partnership involving Fresno State and Foster Farms® to promote teaching and research in poultry science.

Chickens are raised on the Fresno State farm by students under the guidance of dedicated faculty members and with financial and technical support from Foster Farms®. The chickens are harvested and processed as a local USDA inspected facility providing nutrition protein to consumers in the Central Valley sold under the Foster Farms® label.

Proceeds from the sale of chicken products at the Gibson Farm Market helps to strengthen Fresno State programs dedicated to the education of students in the field of agriculture. 

The campus poultry unit has been committed to a strict animal welfare and biosecurity program since its construction in 2013.

The research facility is a tunnel-ventilated house with dirt floors. It runs on natural gas and has a propane back-up generator. This broiler house also has the ability to be set up for half house brooding, center house brooding, or whole house brooding. It can be set up as one entire length of house pen, two pens or four pens

It has four separate water treatment valves and injectors, four separate feed tanks, and four separate sets of feed hoppers and feed lines. There are two 36” and ten 48” fans in the facility, as well as eight overhead stir fans. This house also contains a floor scale in each of the four sections that records bird weight, and archives it via the Chore-Time 2 Controller.

The building is fully secure with locked security doors at all entrances and has an alarm system for temperature and static pressure. Also located at the facility, are restrooms, on-site storage, and handicapped parking.

All poultry raised on the Fresno State campus farm just steps away from all classrooms. We have an active Poultry Science club that is very busy having fun, raising money, and collaborating with other on-campus clubs throughout the year. The club travels to seminars, shows, and industry meetings from California to Georgia.