January 13

1/13 - Avian flu appears to be rampant this winter. From a state of emergency in California (before the fires), to a reemergence in the Midwest in December, to new east coast outbreaks in North Carolina and Delaware, every flyway in the country is transporting Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza or HPAI via wild bird migration. The egg industry is by far the most affected. According to the CDC’s database, the U.S. has lost 23.6M commercial table egg layers over the past 3 months, 10.2M of them in California. According to the USDA, there were 312M table egg layers in the U.S. on Nov 1, 2024 – so we’ve lost over 7% of the flock so far this winter. The USDA benchmark NY large shell egg market was $6.23 per dozen on Friday (1/10), up from $1.95 a year ago. The USDA California large shell egg market is $8.97 per dozen – or a hard-to-believe $.75 per egg! Flock losses are likely to continue through spring.