For years I’ve recommended a very simple diet for ewes in their lambing jugs: a few pounds of alfalfa pellets in a tray hanging on the side of the pen. Nutritious, convenient and waste-free.

If you shorten the lambing period by two weeks, you can treat yourself to a well-earned vacation, finally. Two weeks saved from lambing can translate into two weeks on a warm tropical island with palm trees, a blue lagoon and long, white sand beaches.

“Don’t just buy a ram, buy a lamb crop,” is the motto of Duff Land and Livestock, owned and operated by Mike and Kandi Duff, in Blackfoot, Idaho.

Are those multiple lamb births a problem to deal with or a boon to the lamb crop?

Where will the headwinds in agriculture come from in the next two years?