Eggs, what's going on?
If you have been to the grocery store in the last 6 months you have seen eggs are more than double just a few years ago. $0.99 per dozen are the days of yesteryear. $1.99 per dozen are a couple of years ago, $2.50 was 2024 and now we are at $4.60. These are factory run of the mill mass produced white eggs. Specialty eggs are now $7.00 to $10.00 around here.
Eggs used to be cheap protein that made that average American breakfast common place. While it may not be done yet it could be on its way out - in favor of less healthy options.
What’s going on? Its a number of things, we are using record amounts of eggs, laws have changed to where chicken must have more room and in some state must be free range. Both are adding to the price of a dozen eggs. However their is much more going on that we hear snippets about but seems the media just cannot take the time to do a deep dive into the current happenings.
Yes its bird flu, a flu that does kill birds, but just gives cattle a runny nose and they are lethargic - ie sick.
When 1 bird gets sick the whole flock is being disposed of. Which results in 10’s of millions of layers being gassed and buried. These houses are concentrate in areas around the country and not speckled here and there. Thus one gets it the whole neighborhood get it. It wipes out 100’s of thousands of birds overnight.
In 2024, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) killed 50,432,700 commercial birds in the United States. This number does not include birds in backyard flocks or wild birds.
So how many eggs would these chickens have laid if they were laying? Commercial layers lay 5-6 eggs per week. or 302,596,200 per week or almost 16 billion eggs in 2024. That is a lot of eggs missing from the supply channel. Then throw on top of that it takes up to a month to compost them and then it takes more time to clean out the house, scrub it down, and get all the equipment running properly again.
Demand usually cools off in the summer, which is good to know, but it may not be enough to help with prices. Metz, from the Egg Board, said the volume of eggs sold in stores had been up year over year for 22 consecutive months. American consumers seem to have been heavy on eggs for a while now. Even at higher prices, eggs are still a budget-friendly option for protein, especially in the recent inflationary environment. They're also viewed as nutritional, so if you're on a health kick (and not a vegan), you might be incorporating eggs into your diet more than you used to.
"Large eggs on the West Coast right now are $8.86, and that's because California and the Pacific Northwest mandates cage-free eggs on shelves," Rispoli said, adding that bird flu was exacerbating the issue. "Any state where cage-free supplies are mandated are going to face additional challenges just because of the amount of cage-free production that's been lost to the bird flu," she said.
Since the first detection in US poultry in early 2022, H5N1 outbreaks have now led to the loss of a record 138.7 million birds across 50 states and Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, APHIS confirmed one more H5N1 detection in a dairy herd, another from California, raising the national total to 929 and California's total to 712.
The latest poultry outbreak confirmation from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) includes a detection in Georgia at a broiler farm that houses 45,500 birds in Elbert County, located in the northeastern part of the state.
This outbreak is 70 miles from Georgia poultry lab. With what is now being released on C-19 and the lab leak one has to wonder what if anything is a connection to this lab and the outbreak. We are not dealing with normal caring people that care about humanity. These are some sick people. Did they release a bird flu that they were preforming gain of function on that can now infect cattle and humans? Who knows? but we do know this is the first time this has happened with bird flu. I have no proof but at this point we have to start laying possibilities out on the table.
So how are the birds euthanized? Either the air is shut off and they suffocate or a foam agent is released and covers them up asphyxiating them.
Once that is done the birds are piled up and covered periodically with sawdust. Over the next 3-4 weeks they are periodically mixed to distribute the material and heat.
https://www.farmprogress.com/poultry-news/composting-sick-birds-build-the-pile-right
Once done the remains can be spread on fields for fertilizer.
Once everything is cleansed and put back in working order new chicks can be put in, its 20-25 weeks for the first eggs.
So what are the solutions?
Well it seems to me its crazy to kill 45,000 birds because one catches the flu. If a flock comes up with bird flu, continue feeding and watering the birds, cull the dead ones and let nature take its course. Surely their would be some survivors and we could build a base from that of resistant birds. You know the herd immunity thing that has worked for eons. This worked on Texas Longhorns and made the the breed they are, smart, disease resistant, fly disease resistant cattle they are. Why on earth would that not be an option?
Get the government out of ag. Yes once again government is the problem keeping a solution from being found. Big AG and Big Government LOVE one another. They write rules and regs to keep small family farms out of their “territory” .
100‘s of thousands of small family flocks selling eggs and meat takes all the power away from government and big AG. We would all be better off if that came to being. We could cultivate a friendship with a farmer and get the bonus of unpoisoned food.
The rules on selling farm raised eggs can range from none to full blown commercial regulations. Having all these big animal feedlots, barns etcetera leads to disease outbreaks, over crowding does that. WE need a diversified ag economy, one with multitudes of small producers. This would harden our food supply chain, help keep us healthier and keep us close to the land. But alas government does not want that as they loose control. Its hard to control millions of independent producers vs a few thousand. One thing the government fear most is independent people, they are not easily controlled. One way to facilitate this is to end the income tax, at that point the government looses its main leg iron to keep us in line ’s. They loose complete control of us - which would build a free and prosperous society without government busy bodies.
Another solution is on the table and we now with Trump and RFK jr have a chance to push it over the top!
The Prime Act
https://ij.org/initiatives/food-freedom/prime-act/
Americans want to buy fresh meat from local farmers. But federal law prevents small-scale farmers and ranchers from selling meat in their communities unless they use USDA-approved meat processing plants—the same plants the nation’s largest meat producers use.
In recent years, the number of available USDA-approved meat processing plants have declined, creating an overly centralized system where only about 50 of these slaughterhouses are responsible for 98 percent of the Country’s meat production. This forces small farmers and ranchers to book appointments months in advance and then travel hours—often across state lines—to slaughter their animals.
Of course Big Meat / Big AG are against it, you cant have these whippersnappers horning in on their turf.
NCAB states it is supportive of federal and state meat inspection efforts and has previously supported legislation like The Direct Interstate Retail Exemption for Certain Transaction (DIRECT) Act, which would allow state-inspected beef to be sold interstate in limited quantities, direct-to-consumer, and through e-commerce. Unlike the PRIME Act, these measures would create the necessary paper trail to trace and contain any potential food safety concerns. Learn more about the DIRECT Act in the Taking Stock DC article titled “New bill will expand opportunities for small meat processors”.
Likewise, North American Meat Institute (NAMI) CEO Julie Anna Potts said, "American consumers rely on rigorous USDA inspection to ensure the safety and quality of their meat and poultry. Allowing the meat to enter commerce without inspection — and without alerting consumers they are buying uninspected meat — jeopardizes food safety and will undermine consumer confidence in all meat products. While this bill may be well-intentioned, it poses especially unnecessary risks given the many resources available to help new and small facilities gain inspection from FSIS."
The joke here is when was the last time you heard of a small local butcher recalling bad meat? How about the stamp of approval meat from the USDA inspection service? Yea never vs weekly. Why people think the government is protecting them still baffles me. Government protects its donor class and guess what YOU are not in it!
And just to relieve some of the financial hit from these egg prices:
30 dozen XL eggs for $288.37 - NINE DOLLARS SIXTY ONE CENT PER DOZEN FOR COMMERCIAL EGGS!
LOL I guess that $4-5.00 is a bargain ….
Next up starting your own small flock.
Was just across the border in Tijuana last week…eggs 2.50 for an 18 pack everywhere.. bird flu must respect the border
As the late great Paul Harvey used to say, here is "the rest of the story":
https://open.substack.com/pub/therebelpatient/p/study-shows-chicken-egg-yolk-antibodies?r=16o2xp&utm_medium=ios