December 11

12/11 - The 6-month pause in Avian Flu ended last month. A warm summer delayed wild bird migration (from Canada southward), but now the number of HPAI inflected flocks is piling up. In the month of November, we lost 5.1M egg layers, 1.4M turkeys, and 1.0M broilers. The states up & down the Mississippi flyway have been hardest hit. Whole turkey prices peaked in mid-Nov and have since declined by $.40-.50/lb. Turkey breast prices are stable, and less than half of year-ago levels. With Thanksgiving behind us, the bigger concern right now is egg layers. Egg prices doubled between mid-Oct and mid-Nov, have since backed off, but could still see heavy retail demand ahead of Christmas. In Friday’s WASDE, the USDA lowered its 2024 whole turkey price forecast from $137.00 to $127.00/cwt vs. $140.60 in 2023. NY large eggs for 2024 were raised from $1.45 to $1.50 per dozen vs $1.89 in 2023.