Avian Flu Contributes to Egg Price Rollercoaster

By Mary HightowerUA System Division of AgricultureFAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — That omelet is costing more again thanks to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), but Jada Thompson says the egg price rollercoaster has a downhill side too.According to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, since February 2022, HPAI has been detected in more than 1,400 flocks affecting 149.96 million birds. From Jan. 1-30 of this year, more than 19.63 million birds have been affected including 71 commercial flocks and 43 backyard flocks. That number includes 126,400 chickens from two commercial broiler farms in Cleveland County.“The same similar thing happened at the end of 2022 and into 2023,” said Thompson, associate professor and poultry economist with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.“What you have is very tight supply,” she said. “We were down about 3 percent in egg layer supply at the time and we're down about 3 percent in supply right now.”The number of egg crates in the grocery stores is also affected by a tiny bit of “just-in-case” buying by consumers.“We see the egg prices, and then consumers are responding,” Thompson said. “There's a bit of people buying all the eggs because they're concerned about the availability.Flu CyclesWhile the season for bird flu cycles with spring and fall wildfowl migrations, the rhythm of the egg cycle has its own complexities. Thompson said the retail cycle moves with the holidays when consumers tend to buy more eggs. And then there’s the biology.“The high demand tends to coincide with periods of the year where egg laying kind of drops off a little, due to it being colder and the amount of light changes. There are hormonal effects to egg laying,” she said. “Then in summer, the bird flu starts ebbing and then it picks up i...