MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Top quality beef cattle will move through the auction ring Nov. 21 as Mississippi State University releases more than 100 surplus cattle and 26 horses to the highest bidders.

MSU and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station will host the 20th annual Production Sale at the Mississippi Horse Park, AgriCenter and Fairgrounds, which is located on Poorhouse Road south of Starkville. Lunch will be served at noon, and the sale will begin at 1 p.m. Cattle can be viewed beginning Wednesday afternoon and continuing until the time of the sale.

About 60 bred, commercial heifers from MSU, the Prairie Experiment Station in Prairie and the Brown Loam Branch Experiment Station in Raymond will be sold with calving dates beginning in February. Four select heifers, which are the best registered heifers from the 2002 calf crop, also will be available, along with 25 upcoming 2-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 and open mares, yearlings and weanlings.

Organizers of the sale are providing details about the animals on a web site a couple of weeks before the sale. For pictures and information on the animals, a link will be located on the Animal and Dairy Science Department's web page at http://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.