And you thought manure smelled bad...

As you may know, dairy is HUGE in Wisconsin. Here at the University they make some outstanding ice cream at Babcock Hall. A large portion of the milk used for the ice cream comes from the cows kept on campus. A few weeks ago for home evening we visited the barn on campus. We went there at milking time to see the cows get milked and then we were taken back to the barn to see the animals up close. As it is a research facility, many of the cows were experiments in addition to producers of 100 pounds of milk a day. Consequently, they had holes cut in their sides so that samples could be taken from their stomachs. I had the opportunity to stick my hand inside one of the cows. After recovering from the foul odor emitted from the hole, I stuck my hand inside. Come to find out, it wasn't too weird. It was just a lot of warm, pungent partly digest hay. Still, I would have never guessed that it would smell so bad. Below I include photo evidence of the endeavor.