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See, but the phrasing of these kinds of articles are a form of Propaganda.
It's not that "58M chickens all got Avian Flu and they died from Avian Flu". Maybe one to a dozen birds got it and they chose to kill 5,000 other birds on the same farm as a technique to prevent the spread.
The cost of developing of a test to reliably detect the pathogen, and a treatment/immunization/vaccine for a chicken, and then followup care and reporting, exceeds the cost of a chicken. So its cheaper to kill them all, and start over with a new batch.
Also, round numbers are always false. "58M" is a number somebody made up. It's not like is a database somewhere, with every chicken, and every chicken has a social security number. And then you run a batch report which calculates [living chickens, plus new births, minus accidents, disease, harvest and deaths, plus foreign immigrated chickens, minus exported chickens... = current population]. Nope. Somebody just said "well I thought about it, and I estimate 58M chickens could be effected and therefore died."
The real number might be closer to "29M", but we're gonna do some price gouging, so we put the word out there in people's minds that there is chicken shortage, these are the short reasons why, and that's why eggs are so expensive these days. The situation is only temporary...
You are so right in so many ways, but please allow me to polish what you stated.
"Affected" not "Effected."
Costs - in so many ways, spot on. However...
A small farmer contracted with a major company that begins with "T" or "P" will get around 40,000 chicks to care for - for about a month and a half. Ten thousand per barn, yeah. (Those are BIG barns, they cannot be crowded.)
Biosecurity is absolutely crucial. When the farmer walks in, he likely has to dip his boots into a chlorine bath. No outside birds are allowed. No visitors. However, if one outside bird contaminates - by flying through an air vent, by contaminating feed, by any means, and ONE bird in the barn is infected - 10,000 get culled. If the concern is great, all 40,000 may get culled and the farm taken out of rotation for a period.
Who pays? (Ahem... follow the money.) I leave the rest of the story to you.
OTOH, we pay an artificially low cost for chicken because of the power of massive infrastructure. A billion pounds of feed costs chicken feed compared to what a home raiser would pay at Tractor Supply.
First world problem if painting Easter eggs/egg hunts cannot be given up during shortage times.
Good grief.
We live in a first world, so yes, not having eggs to color would spoil it for some people. Maybe they will google to see what local fresh eggs they can buy?
One article shared in the thread is from April, there was a shortage back then too. I don't recall what day Easter was.
I personally don't eat many eggs unless I'm in the mood for egg salad. I use them to cook a few things. I'll need a few for the Christmas cheese cake. My hub just bought eggs from Sam's club, he didn't say they had a sign. If they did, he may have bought more the next day he worked. He eats an egg every morning.
I'm not usually the one buying eggs, I'll have to look to see what Walmart has the next time I'm there. I walked by the eggs yesterday, I don't recall there being a shortage sign.
They probably have eggs. We do. Home chickens don't get eggs into stores.
Avian flu was a real thing this year, and if one bird got it, they killed every chicken on the whole farm. It was crazy and sad. People were covering their coops and keeping them inside to keep migrating birds from pooping on them when they went over.
It probably had a lot of severe local effects where outbreaks happened and it will take awhile to catch up and replace whole poultry operations.
Yes. Where I live it was being transmitted by seagulls. Of course I have a lunatic neighbor who feeds seagulls. She's a mile away but they come to my house!
The farm fresh eggs are *infinitely* better than store bought. I hope I never have to go back to store bought.
I've heard this so many times but it has not been my experience. I'm sure there are low quality commercial eggs, but I haven't run across them. We also have two friends who raise chickens and we sometimes get fresh eggs from them. My whole family (5 people) agrees that we cannot tell any difference in taste.
Yes. Where I live it was being transmitted by seagulls. Of course I have a lunatic neighbor who feeds seagulls. She's a mile away but they come to my house!
We waterfowl hunters have been asked to keep an eye out for any strange acting birds this year (as well as last). Some species of ducks seem to be more affected than others.
As far as the "commercial vs. small farm" eggs go I can tell the difference, both in appearance and taste. Farm eggs will have oranger and more upright yolks than commercially raised eggs. The taste is impacted by diet. Commercial layers are fed a diet which optimizes egg production while farm chickens, while also fed commercial feed at times, also, as mentioned, will be out eating bugs and such.
The same way I can tell the flavor difference in milk when the cows switch from silage/feed to grass in the Spring.
FYI, chickens that are not in commercial barns don't lay many eggs this time of year. Home egg-layers may not be keeping up.
True that, but my five backyard chooks are giving me 2-3 eggs every day despite the cold (down to -12F last week) and low daylight. And despite eating eggs nearly daily, we still give some away.
I didn't get into the eggs due to Covid, but due to the fact that I finally moved from a city out in ag-land, which didn't allow backyard eggs, to a suburban metro area which does allow backyard eggs.
Agreed. My friends bought their ranch about....five years ago now? They started a flock, and I've been buying eggs from them ever since. They started off charging $3/dozen (and I'd judge the eggs to be a mix of medium and large), they later raised it to $4/dozen, and they just announced they have to raise the price to $5/dozen, because the cost of feed has gone up..
The pricing at $5/dozen seems about right. I put a value of $6/dozen on my eggs, not because I sell any but because I want to keep track of my benefit:cost ratio over time, and $0.50/egg is simpler mathematically than $0.416666/egg.
I believe that an egg with a large yellow-orange yolk is nutritionally superior to a cage-laid egg with a flat, light yellow yolk; thus, the pricing differential might be justified.
Commercial feed has remained fairly stable in price around here, but I am looking at expanding my feed supply by growing out millet this next summer and started raising my own mealworms. Chooks are omnivores and will eat just about anything. I keep commercial feed available to the birds so they can take what they want, but they will eat mealworms, earthworms, corn, carrot slices, squash, Arugula, and anything else I throw in before the commercial feed.
Someone gave me dry, stale bread -about which I was sceptical- and the birds tore through that within 2 hours. And then my neighbor had a rib cage segment from a deer and that venison only lasted a day-and-a-half.
Immigrants from Countries to the South of the US, won't eat the commercially produced eggs here. Turns out, they think there's something wrong with them. (They could be right.) They don't like the color of the yolks. "Too pale" in comparison to the bright yellow yolks that they're used to. They said that the birds would forage wild marigolds in their home country. It is the bright yellow flower color that transfers to bright yolks, they said. Probably hogwash, but I don't know, either.
So, if you want vivid yellow yolks, plant marigolds in your field where your chickens forage. This ain't no yolk, either.
The egg shortage must be local to the OP as I haven't seen any egg shortages (although the price of eggs in general has gone up like everything else).
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