TOP QUALITY beef animals will move through the auction ring Nov. 15 as Mississippi State University releases more than 100 surplus cattle and 24 horses to the highest bidders.

MSU and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station will host the 19th annual Production Sale at the Mississippi Horse Park, AgriCenter and Fairgrounds, located on Poorhouse Road south of Starkville, Miss.

Lunch will be served at noon, and the sale will begin at 1 p.m.

About 70 bred, commercial heifers from MSU and the Brown Loam Branch Experiment Station in Raymond, Miss., will be sold with calving dates beginning in February. Three select heifers, which are the best registered heifers from the 2001 calf crop, also will be available, along with 34 upcoming two-year-old angus, charolais and polled hereford bulls.

The sale will include a larger-than-normal number of horses. Some are broken for riding, and others are just halter broken. The horses include some bred mares, a stallion, yearlings and weanlings.

For the first year, organizers of the sale are providing details about the animals on a Website a couple of weeks before the sale. A link to the sale will be located on the Animal and Dairy Science Department's web page at www.msstate.edu/dept/ads.

For more information on the sale, contact Mike Boyd with MSU's Animal and Dairy Science Department at 662-325-2802.