The final chapter of the Iowa State Dairy Farm will begin Saturday when 113 of the farm’s dairy cattle will be sold off at an auction.

The auction, which will take place at the Dairy Pavilion, will begin at noon and go until the last cow is sold, said Catherine Woteki, dean of the College of Agriculture.

The cows are being sold to help the College of Agriculture raise money for a new dairy farm. When the closing of the dairy farm was announced in July, there were 450 head of cattle at the Ames farm.

About 150 milking cows and calves were moved to the university’s Ankeny dairy farm, said Douglas Kenealy, university professor of animal science.

Money made at the auction will go to pay off the farm’s debt, but Kenealy was unsure how much money the farm would make from the auction.

“[The auction] is open to the public,” Woteki said. “Right now, over 100 people have shown an interest in attending the auction.”

Rachel Stammeyer, senior in dairy science, works at the dairy farm and will attend the auction.

“We are selling all kinds of cows [of] various ages and breeds,” Stammeyer said. “There are just three heifer calves left from the cattle we took to Ankeny today. I’m going to buy a few cows for my own collection.”

Stammeyer said she has been working 12-hour days at the dairy farm this week in preparation for the event.

“I missed class yesterday and today,” she said. “It was my choice, but I wanted to help out because of personal reasons.”

Stammeyer grew up on a dairy farm in northern Iowa and has worked at the dairy farm since her freshman year at Iowa State.

“It has been kind of nerve- wracking this week,” she said. “Not because the farm is closing, but because there was a lot of work to be done that couldn’t be done without the help of students.”

After this weekend, Stammeyer isn’t sure where she will be working.

“I am currently looking for a new job because I need the money,” she said.

Stammeyer used her job at the dairy farm to pay for her living expenses and tuition, but with just eight weeks left in the semester, she said finding a new job might be hard.

“It will be sad to see the animals being sold on Saturday,” Stammeyer said. “Especially when you helped raise some of them.”

Woteki said she did not want to speculate on how much money the auction would raise for the College of Agriculture.

Kenealy said arrangements will be made within the next year for a new farm to be built south of Ames on State Street.