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This story starts out about Skittles but ends up being about cows.
A rural county in southeast Wisconsin had a sweet, sticky mystery along a highway earlier this week. Hundreds of thousands of red Skittles were found spilled on a road in Dodge County.
"There's no little 'S' on them, but you can definitely smell, it's a distinct Skittles smell," Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt told CNN affiliate WISN.
No one knew where the candy came from or where it was going, but county road crews said the Skittles spill was actually helpful, as the roads in the area have been icy the past couple of days and the thousands of little candies improved traction.
Yes, they're feeding candy to cows -- and they've been doing it for years.
A former farmer told CNN affiliate WBAY that candy makers and bakeries often sell rejects to be used as cattle feed because they provide "cheap carbs."
The practice goes back decades, but it picked up steam in 2012 when corn prices were surging and cattle farmers were looking for a cheaper way to keep their cows and other livestock fed.
"(It) is a very good way for producers to reduce feed cost, and to provide less expensive food for consumers," said Ki Fanning, a livestock nutritionist with Great Plains Livestock Consulting, told CNNMoney at the time.
When we had a small cattle feedlot back in the 1970s, feeding surplus or outdated candy, bread, pastries, tortillas, etc., was already an old and well-established practice. We didn't do it because grain was cheap at the time.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Marcia
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My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor and some style. - M. Angelou
