Much like a favorite pair of boots we pull on every day but can’t recall the last time we cleaned and oiled, farm skid and small oscillating loaders are so useful we use them for everything from cleaning pens to moving feed. For most of us, it is a rare day someone does not use the skid loader for some task, big or small.

Little America, Wyoming, is a unique truck stop/tourist haven on I-80 west of Rock Springs. It’s aged. First time I was there in the 1970s, it was huge and spectacular. By today’s standards, it’s only a moderately sized freeway oasis. The wind always blows, and the softy ice cream machine is always running.

I’ve never been particularly fond of birds of any sort. Really, there’s nothing pleasant about a mess of nasty starlings or pigeons nesting in the eaves of the calving shed or devouring the silage pile. It’s the bird world’s answer to rodents – pure avian avarice.

Every year, World Dairy Expo attracts over 70,000 visitors, but there’s more than the international showcase of the industry’s best animals and heart-pounding competition that keep dairy lovers flocking to it. The expo offers visitors an action-packed week, and the excitement is not just on the colored shavings.

Much like embarking on a long sea voyage, setting off with a large group of cattle on a cross-country journey to World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, takes a great deal of forethought and organization by the captain and crew.

Anyone who goes to World Dairy Expo hoping to strike gold need not look very far. A nationally recognized string showcasing a collage of fawn and white coats, rich as the gold-tinted milk they produce, proudly represents a handful of the Guernsey breed’s finest.

Mastitis is most often associated with disease of the udder recognized as either subclinical or clinical disease resulting in reduced milk production and potentially a sick cow.

In 1992, beef carcasses at Tyson Foods had four sorts at the packing plant. Just four. A Select grade carcass wasn’t even among the sort criteria.

August 2017 milk production grew 2 percent compared to the same month a year earlier, as favorable weather in the Northeast and Midwest strengthened milk output per cow. USDA also revised July 2017 milk output and cow numbers up slightly.