Cows ‘moo-ve’ into new facility
July 31, 2025
Part of Michigan State University’s dairy cattle herd “moo-ved” into its new home yesterday — the new $75 million Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center.
A temporary fence was installed between the new and the old centers to allow the cows to walk to their new digs.
“It was a 21st-century cattle drive,” said George Smith, director of AgBioResearch, which supports researchers and research infrastructure across seven MSU colleges.
The new dairy farm replaces the old one, which was built in the 1960s and was so limited in space, cattle and equipment that researchers have put funded research projects on hold, in some cases as long as two years. The new 165,000-square-foot dairy farm allows MSU to modernize and triple the size of the existing dairy farm to house up to 680 cows, up from the existing herd of 260. The new cows will be brought into the facility in small groups over the next month.