Large Animal Hospital

The Large Animal Hospital in Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine’s Dr. W. Eugene and Linda Lloyd Medical Center has been serving equine and food animals since 2009. The $45.1 million project  was completed through a combination of private gifts and funding from the State of Iowa.

The Large Animal Hospital is a world-class facility whose dedicated staff are committed to providing preventive and advanced veterinary specialty care to patients, educating future veterinarians, and advancing animal and human health. The main spine of the Large Animal Hospital includes a service corridor that connects large animal imaging, equine surgeries and intensive care with receiving, treatment and wards. In the food animal receiving area, animals enter the building through a series of pens located under the roofed area.

Additional features

• Sterile and standing food animal surgeries
• Eight equine treatment rooms
• Holding pens for cattle, sheep, small ruminants and swine
• Two large hydraulic tables
• Cryogenic/therio laboratory
• Two equine client consultation rooms that allow owners to watch their horses during surgery and provide private meeting areas for doctors and clients
• Three student rounds rooms with high-definition monitors
• Equine Intensive Care Unit
  • Mare/foal stalls
  • Padded neuro stall
  • Full visual monitoring and ICU stalls, surgeries and isolation area 24/7
• Large Animal Isolation Area isolates infectious diseases with separate air handling system and biosecurity protocols
• Induction/Recovery Stalls
  • Padded stalls where horses are induced and recover
  • Overhead monorail to place horses on surgery carts
  • Three equine surgery units – general, orthopedic and soft tissue
• Large Animal Imaging
  • Equine standing surgery
  • MRI
    Nuclear Scintigraphy Machine
    Large Animal X-ray and Ultrasound
    16-slice CT unit

Because of the large demand for food animal services in the area, the Large Animal Hospital has been expanded in recent years.

• The Veterinary Field Services is a separate facility which houses a year-round ,24-hour emergency care operation. Three trucks and eight faculty members provide outreach and on-farm individual animal and herd health services for beef, dairy, swine, sheep, goats and camelids.
• A bovine and camelid addition includes four camelid/small ruminant stalls and eight bovine stalls.
• An Equine Performance Evaluation Facility includes an arena with force-plate for gait analysis and a separate area for the college’s farrier.