After a hiatus last year to prevent the spread of avian flu, the milking parlor at the Iowa State Fair Dairy Barn is back in 2025.
The return of the milking equipment was met Thursday, Aug. 7, by grateful producers — and probably the cows as well.
If cows — particularly those bred for high milk production — are not milked, they can experience discomfort, pain, and potentially serious health issues. With the parlor shut down last year, cow owners used their own milking equipment and then properly disposed of the milk, said Rhonda Guy of Newton, who works in the milk parlor.
Make no mistake, this often-unseen part of the State Fair may be one of the busiest and most productive.
During the fair, the 200-some cows are milked until 2 a.m. The parlor reopens again at 5 a.m., Guy said.
“So it’s really only down three hours a day,” he said.
Guy estimates the cows will produce approximately 240,000 pounds of milk — roughly 28,000 gallons — during the fair. The milk is collected by trucks and then is sold on the market, Guy said.
“It’s the first day and we’re all kind of getting back into the swing of it,” Guy said Thursday.
Bird flu primarily affects poultry but by June last year, the disease had spread to seven dairy herds. Only one poultry farm — and no dairy herd — has reported a case of bird flu this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kevin Baskins covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at kbaskins@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Shut down in 2024 to prevent bird flu, milking parlor reopens at the Iowa State Fair
Reporting by Kevin Baskins, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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