STARKVILLE, Miss. — Mississippi State University is pressing on with a $50 million build-out of its veterinary college, and a new farm animal hospital is the first big piece taking shape on the Starkville campus.
Heath King, who directs the MSU Animal Health Center, said Monday that phase one pairs that hospital with an outpatient cattle handling facility. Because of where that hospital sits, the horse entrance has been shifted to a new spot, and crews are adding a laminitis evaluation area right beside it.
The new space carries the name Nancy Fair Link Laminitis Center. King said no other center of its kind exists in the country. Its work centers on better ways to prevent and treat a painful hoof condition that can be debilitating in horses.
Plans also add private rooms for client consultations and a refresh of the hospital that treats dogs, cats and other small pets. That part is still early, but current plans would enlarge emergency and intensive care space and put specialty care, including oncology and dermatology, nearer to where patients wait.
The college’s teaching hospitals date to the 1970s. State lawmakers set aside $18 million in 2024 to cover phases one and two of a four-part plan. That plan includes the cattle facility and farm animal hospital, a renovated horse hospital and a bigger small animal wing.
The university has tied the work to a new Center for Rural Veterinary Practice meant to ease a shortage of animal care in rural Mississippi. That center works to recruit students from rural and underserved areas and to help veterinarians build lasting practices in small towns.
For Starkville, the project means more construction traffic around the veterinary complex in the months ahead, and more specialty care close to home once the new buildings open. Owners of cattle, horses and family pets across the region already travel to the college for treatment, and the added space is meant to widen what the hospitals can handle.
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