Brothers Doug and Steve Turnis of Hopkinton will be hosting an open house at their farm on Wednesday, March 18. They will be hosting the open house, along with the Northeast Iowa Dairy Foundation and various businesses who worked on the project.
The Turnis brothers recently put up a new 160-stall freestall barn and a new double-12 parlor.
Their old 106-stall tie stall barn was to the point they had to do something, so they decided to build with a focus on cow comfort.
Their new barn has waterbeds for the cows and big energy-efficient fans. It also features a scraper system, headlocks and alley mats.
“We decided to focus on keeping the cows comfortable and they have responded with milk,” says Doug.
They moved into the freestall barn the end of summer and moved into the new parallel parlor in November. The parlor was built into their old tie-stall barn.
Their new parlor includes a plate cooler system and that water is used for watering the cows. The wash water from the milking system is used to wash down after milking and then used again to flush the flumes of manure system.
The Turnis brothers are the third generation on their family farm.
The open house will be at 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18, with a short program at about 11 a.m.
The Program Committee of the Northeast Iowa Dairy Foundation helped organize the event. The Foundation is a grassroots, not-for-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the dairy industry through people by providing education, demonstration and research. The Foundation owns The Dairy Center in Calmar, which is operated in partnership with Northeast Iowa Community College and Iowa State University.
Iowa's Dairy Industry
- Iowa Dairy
- Iowa has a very diverse dairy industry with 2000+ farm families, processing plants, dairy schools and a strong supporting industry. This blog is updated by the Iowa State Dairy Association with the support of the Iowa Dairy Coalition. www.iowadairy.org
