High-impact educational practices (HIP) correlated positively with students’ educational outcomes and can be an approach to address achievement gaps. A survey was conducted in 2012 and 2013 to evaluate the perception of animal sciences instructors on the importance (1 = not at all to 5 = a great deal) and adequacy (need more, good as it is, need less) of 16 educational practices which included 7 HIP: internships (INT), capstone courses or projects (CCP), collaborative assignments and projects (CAP), undergraduate research (URS), writing-intensive courses (WIC), diversity/global learning (DGL), and service learning, community-based learning (SCL). The analyzed data set included 148 instructors from 68 academic institutions. Rankings and scores (mean ± SD) for the 7 HIP were INT (3, 4.44 ± 0.64), CCP (4, 4.37 ± 0.79), CAP (5, 4.26 ± 0.68), URS (6, 4.25 ± 0.79), WIC (7, 4.21 ± 0.76), DGL (10, 3.88 ± 0.88), and SCL (15, 3.54 ± 0.86). Except for DGL, demographic factors affected HIP scores as follows: types of colleagues (animal scientists vs. others; INT, P = 0.010), academic position (assistant, associate, full professor, others; INT, P = 0.008; CAP, P = 0.026), graduate program completed in the US (yes or no; CAP, P = 0.011), teaching experience (no, limited, some experience, taught full-semester courses; CAP, P = 0.031), type of university (Carnegie basic classification, 2010; URS, P = 0.034), survey year (2012 vs. 2013; WIC, P = 0.006), first generation to attend college (yes or no; SCL, P = 0.022), and ethnicity (minority vs. Caucasian; SCL, P = 0.040). Percentage of respondents who indicated “need more” of the HIP in the curriculum in their institutions were: WIC:55, URS:53, CCP:53, SLC:53, CAP:48, INT:46, and DGL:46%; whereas the percentages for “good as it is” were 34, 38, 34, 37, 41, 43, and 47%, respectively. Multiple demographic factors influenced animal science instructors’ perceptions of the importance of HIP. Furthermore, most instructors recognized the need to include more HIP in the curriculum.