The ISU Dairy Farm is located on 27 acres at 52470 260th St. in Ames, three miles south of central campus. There are close to 400 dairy cows and another 400 heifers and around 35 students are employed to help operate the farm.
The dairy farm opened in the fall of 2007 and currently ship 29,000 lbs of milk each day to Prairie Farms. The milk can be found in your local Midwest grocery store. Sustainable farming is practiced at all of our farms. This starts at the dairy farm with the manure handling system. The manure handling system separates the solids which are used for animal bedding and compost used on campus, and the liquid portion is stored in a 2 million gallon tank that is emptied a couple times a year. The contents are used as fertilizer for ISU farms.
Notice on tours: With the announcement of HPAI in a dairy herd in NW Iowa, we have decided to temporarily prohibit visitors to the ISU Dairy Farm as a preventative measure. This decision was made working with our attending veterinarian and is out of an abundance of caution to limit possible exposure to our cattle and personnel. While this is unfortunate, it is important to assure the health of our animals, employees and to protect the integrity of the ongoing research at the farm. The situation is evolving rapidly with new information coming in regularly so we will reevaluate this policy as soon as it is safe for our cattle and team.
For questions or information on tours, please contact Mary Healey at mhhealey@iastate.edu or Rusty Burgett at rburgett@iastate.edu.
Click here for more information on our dairy facilities (pdf)
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Iowa State Dairy Farm - November Stats
The Iowa State University Dairy Farm milks 2 times per day at 6 am and 6 pm. There are currently 392 heifers and 443 cows, with 352 cows in milk.
Cows by Breed:
- Holstein: 327 (92.9%)
- Jersey: 32 (9.1%)
- Ho-Je: 5 (1.4%)
Lab Test Results:
- 75.7 lbs/cow (8.8 gal/cow or 33.3 liter/cow)
- 4.8% fat
- 3.6% protein
- 83.3 std 150d milk
Rolling Herd Average:
- 24,476 lbs milk (2846 gallons)
- 1132 lbs fat
- 853 lbs protein
Reproduction:
- 2.0 spc
- 132 days open
- 13.5 month calving interval
Location
52470 260th Street, Ames, Iowa 50014
