About

The V Bar V Ranch is home to the University of Arizona's 350 head cattle herd, comprised of Hereford, Braford (a Brahma-Hereford cross), and a composite breed. The herd has complete SNP genome data and twenty years of performance data available to researchers and livestock growers. 

The facility is living laboratory to develop new knowledge on livestock production, range management, wildlife populations and wildlife-livestock interactions, and natural resource conservation. The ranch is home to a wide variety of wildlife, ranging from mammals, birds and fish to reptiles and amphibians. Vegetation zones, including high desert chaparral, pinyon-juniper woodland, and pine forest, are typical of those on most of the commercial ranches in central and northern Arizona.

Positioned along the Mogollon Rim, the ranch's 57-pasture grazing allotment runs about 30 miles east from Camp Verde and varies between four and five miles in width. Slightly more than forty acres is private land, with the remainder held under lease from the U.S. Forest Service. Acquired in 1995, the Arizona Experiment Station's V Bar V Ranch was made possible through a gift from Ben and Betsy Zink.

The V Bar V is a fully operating, working ranch, and research performed here involves an applied approach to problem-solving, rather than laboratory studies in basic science. A full range of teaching and extension activities take place on the property, including artificial insemination workshops and synchronization services, as well as hands-on experiential learning in the form of internships and classes connected to the herd's planned calving.