Last Sunday, I was able to visit the Cornell Teaching Dairy Barn with fellow Rose scholars. I was excited about this event because it was an opportunity to venture away from the places I usually frequent on campus. I had always heard that the milk we drink in the dining halls comes from the cows at our dairy barn, but I didn’t realize how close they actually were. I honestly went in with the expectation that we would be able to see the cows from far away and attend more a lecture like activity. However, as we entered, we were able to see dozens of cows no more than 2 feet away from us!

The veterinary student who was our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable about everything regarding the cows and the facility. She explained how there are 150 cows (and 56% of them are pregnant)  in the facility on average and they rotate between laying on their “beds”, eating, and milking throughout the day. Because the cows produce 9 gallons of milk on average per day, it is no surprise that they need to consume pounds and pounds of food to keep up.

We were able to watch the cows enter the milking facility and place themselves in their individual milking stations (they do this on their own)! While at the stations, an employee attaches a machine similar to a suction cup to the cows and once the machine calculates that it has received the right amount of milk, it disengages from the cows. Watching this was very fascinating because I didn’t realize how much engineering went into making the process more streamlined.

Once we left the milking facility, we were able to see where the cows eat and sleep, and finally, we were able to see all the babies that had been recently born! Overall, this was probably the best event I have attended!