A “virtual dairy farm” has been developed by Penn State, Cornell University, and others, to demonstrate sustainable practices for dairy farming.
According to Penn State:
The website, designed and developed by the creative services team at WPSU Penn State, has two virtual farms: One is a model of a 1,500-cow facility, while the other is a smaller-scale operation of 150 animals. Users can click on the various aspects of the farm, such as pastures, housing, manure storage facilities, feed silos, milking facilities and more, and information related to that specific area will pop up, allowing for further exploration.
Topics include herd management, feed management, milk production, crops and soils, manure management and greenhouse gases. The site’s database includes a broad range of articles, extension fact sheets, models, images and graphics. The layers of information range from exploration of the farm site with basic information to higher levels of technical and research information, data, and models.
You can try out the virtual dairy farm yourself.