I'm certainly not an egg expert, but my boss is! She's been raising her own chickens for years. Last week, I made a joking remark about getting some and she told me "You can't. They aren't allowed to ship any to GA." In normal times, you can actually order baby chicks and have them shipped to you. But the department of agriculture had a moritorium on "poultry activity" here!
Specific to the recent Federal Government activity on this topic. Attempts at "stamping out" what is obviously an endemic infection with wild bird reservoirs has proven to be unsuccessful and exceedingly expensive to the public sector. Futile efforts by the USDA have incurred a cost of close to $2.4 billion for indemnity and decontamination. This figure pales in comparison with the cost borne by consumers. The conservative $3 per dozen differential between the pre-HPAI cost compared to the average price in 2024 amounts to $23 billion over the 7.6 billion dozen consumed in either shell or equivalent liquid form. I met with my US Congressman in November following the election to share the severity of this issue due to government non-action and was told nothing would happen on it until March or April because of confirmation hearings and likely opening salvos of Executive Orders. He was right on both.
Plenty of items to comment on, but first I do business with both Rose Acres and Cal-Maine as well as a number of other egg producers and purchase and distribute the full spectrum of eggs and egg products; conventional, cage free, organic, pasture raised, liquid, frozen and hard cooked. I also owned and operated a commercial egg hatchery and associate breeder farms for several years and purchased egg layer feed ingredients and vaccines exposing me to those industries as well. Eggs are a commodity subject to, and very sensitive of, market conditions of supply and demand. There are a few price discovery vehicles of which Egg Clearing House (ECI) is the most connected to how the egg market is reported by the organization formerly known as Urner Barry. Anyone who subscribes may post bids (shorts) and offers (longs) daily on ECI with some level of anonymity. The US Department of Justice will look closely at how this functions and how then Urner Barry uses it as well as daily, firsthand conversations with producers, brokers, wholesalers and large retailers to report on market conditions. Regardless of previous investigations, in my opinion this one will not result in any findings of market manipulation. MARKET UPDATE: brokers and traders who do not take possession of the actual eggs dumped their positions about 10 days ago when they smelled the market was close to the top and are not sitting on the sidelines. This has resulted in an amazing reduction in the national market of close to $1.50 per dozen with more likely. This market anomaly will be reported to the White House and they will quickly lay claim to the credit which is only connected to the USDA announcement that they were finally going to approve the use of an HPAI vaccination. CORRECTION: Most all US commercial egg producers are now, and have been for years, vaccinating our day old baby chicks against salmonella at the hatchery and then boosters later in lay; typically two killed (inactivated) and one live. We will disagree on the long term results on what a mass vaccination program for HPAI would bring. I am of the opinion the longer it is out in the environment due to no vaccinations, the much higher likelihood of mutations. We can allow a professional poultry vet to weigh in on that. We vaccinate against a small legend of poultry diseases depending on where the birds are located with great success. The small backyard flocks are not due to lower density, cost, availability and knowledge. This can make them reservoirs for many types of infections but mostly to Cocci and separately to intestinal worms which is an ugly condition and spreads very easy, hen to hen as they peck at droppings. For this and other reasons, as someone who is in the know, I personally advise friends and family to avoid purchasing eggs from backyard flocks but not a passion to lobby against it. However, I would eat backyard hen eggs before drinking unpasteurized milk; that is a real crapshoot especially for young kids and the elderly. I also wholesale a lot of dairy for over 40 years.
Keep up the good work and please feel welcome to reach out if you want someone to proof your articles on egg and dairy products!
Interesting. I’ll do a correction on salmonella vaccinations. The info I saw said we don’t do it widely but that is certainly outdated or incorrect. I’m not against HPAI vaccination. I was commenting on the risks that the industry groups and an academic paper examining China’s program found. If it works and keeps more hens in “production,” and makes the food supply less susceptible to epidemics, sure, do it.
Concentrating egg farming into massive industrial farms means higher likelihood of spread of disease requiring mass culling, but also lowers the price of eggs compared to having a more decentralized set of farms.
There's something to be said about having a standard that is both safe and allows for importing more supply when needed: eggs are a good example (as you noted, Europe has a different standard), as is baby formula (where our standards don't allow for import). It's important to note that global supply chains faired better than local supply chains during COVID. Having multiple sources for a good makes for a more resilient supply chain than one where you have one source, and for eggs/formula/other goods we have a domestic-only supply chain - which is far more susceptible to supply shocks.
If you have a Costco nearby, you might be able to find eggs there and for a decent price. Though that may be more about Georgia egg supply...
There's a Costco nearby, but I am not a member (Sam's Club through work and I don't want to pay for a membership when I have one free). There's also a Farmer's Market in Decatur that probably has good eggs.
That's fair. Both Costco and Trader Joe's have been the most reliable sources for eggs for us, hence the recommendation. If you're able to get to a farmer's market that may work too, though I find their prices to be quite high even in times of normal supply ('cause economics of scale, I imagine).
In 1950, my grandfather had a meat market and grocery store. He raised and butchered cattle, hogs and more than 5000 chickens. They were raised mostly for meat but every day one of my chores was to collect two or three dozen eggs. No bird flu or other health problems with small scale livestock and poultry farming. Hundreds of similar farms operated in NE Georgia.
Today, any livestock or poultry disease affects thousands of cattle and hogs and millions of birds guaranteed to cause regional and national shortages. Centralizing supply sources for any commodity might be relatively efficient but it comes with vulnerability.
...and the shortages and even famine will continue to be more and more of a threat as we faster approach the rapture of the church, and the 7 year tribulation period on Earth.
I'm certainly not an egg expert, but my boss is! She's been raising her own chickens for years. Last week, I made a joking remark about getting some and she told me "You can't. They aren't allowed to ship any to GA." In normal times, you can actually order baby chicks and have them shipped to you. But the department of agriculture had a moritorium on "poultry activity" here!
And I know zip about rice except that I enjoy eating it.
I would wager we will see sub $3.00 per dozen eggs at retail no later than post Easter 2026.
That would be nice.
Specific to the recent Federal Government activity on this topic. Attempts at "stamping out" what is obviously an endemic infection with wild bird reservoirs has proven to be unsuccessful and exceedingly expensive to the public sector. Futile efforts by the USDA have incurred a cost of close to $2.4 billion for indemnity and decontamination. This figure pales in comparison with the cost borne by consumers. The conservative $3 per dozen differential between the pre-HPAI cost compared to the average price in 2024 amounts to $23 billion over the 7.6 billion dozen consumed in either shell or equivalent liquid form. I met with my US Congressman in November following the election to share the severity of this issue due to government non-action and was told nothing would happen on it until March or April because of confirmation hearings and likely opening salvos of Executive Orders. He was right on both.
Can you be more specific, for us who are not in the know, at what efforts the USDA has actually done (versus announced)?
Plenty of items to comment on, but first I do business with both Rose Acres and Cal-Maine as well as a number of other egg producers and purchase and distribute the full spectrum of eggs and egg products; conventional, cage free, organic, pasture raised, liquid, frozen and hard cooked. I also owned and operated a commercial egg hatchery and associate breeder farms for several years and purchased egg layer feed ingredients and vaccines exposing me to those industries as well. Eggs are a commodity subject to, and very sensitive of, market conditions of supply and demand. There are a few price discovery vehicles of which Egg Clearing House (ECI) is the most connected to how the egg market is reported by the organization formerly known as Urner Barry. Anyone who subscribes may post bids (shorts) and offers (longs) daily on ECI with some level of anonymity. The US Department of Justice will look closely at how this functions and how then Urner Barry uses it as well as daily, firsthand conversations with producers, brokers, wholesalers and large retailers to report on market conditions. Regardless of previous investigations, in my opinion this one will not result in any findings of market manipulation. MARKET UPDATE: brokers and traders who do not take possession of the actual eggs dumped their positions about 10 days ago when they smelled the market was close to the top and are not sitting on the sidelines. This has resulted in an amazing reduction in the national market of close to $1.50 per dozen with more likely. This market anomaly will be reported to the White House and they will quickly lay claim to the credit which is only connected to the USDA announcement that they were finally going to approve the use of an HPAI vaccination. CORRECTION: Most all US commercial egg producers are now, and have been for years, vaccinating our day old baby chicks against salmonella at the hatchery and then boosters later in lay; typically two killed (inactivated) and one live. We will disagree on the long term results on what a mass vaccination program for HPAI would bring. I am of the opinion the longer it is out in the environment due to no vaccinations, the much higher likelihood of mutations. We can allow a professional poultry vet to weigh in on that. We vaccinate against a small legend of poultry diseases depending on where the birds are located with great success. The small backyard flocks are not due to lower density, cost, availability and knowledge. This can make them reservoirs for many types of infections but mostly to Cocci and separately to intestinal worms which is an ugly condition and spreads very easy, hen to hen as they peck at droppings. For this and other reasons, as someone who is in the know, I personally advise friends and family to avoid purchasing eggs from backyard flocks but not a passion to lobby against it. However, I would eat backyard hen eggs before drinking unpasteurized milk; that is a real crapshoot especially for young kids and the elderly. I also wholesale a lot of dairy for over 40 years.
Keep up the good work and please feel welcome to reach out if you want someone to proof your articles on egg and dairy products!
Interesting. I’ll do a correction on salmonella vaccinations. The info I saw said we don’t do it widely but that is certainly outdated or incorrect. I’m not against HPAI vaccination. I was commenting on the risks that the industry groups and an academic paper examining China’s program found. If it works and keeps more hens in “production,” and makes the food supply less susceptible to epidemics, sure, do it.
Ah, trade-offs...
Concentrating egg farming into massive industrial farms means higher likelihood of spread of disease requiring mass culling, but also lowers the price of eggs compared to having a more decentralized set of farms.
There's something to be said about having a standard that is both safe and allows for importing more supply when needed: eggs are a good example (as you noted, Europe has a different standard), as is baby formula (where our standards don't allow for import). It's important to note that global supply chains faired better than local supply chains during COVID. Having multiple sources for a good makes for a more resilient supply chain than one where you have one source, and for eggs/formula/other goods we have a domestic-only supply chain - which is far more susceptible to supply shocks.
If you have a Costco nearby, you might be able to find eggs there and for a decent price. Though that may be more about Georgia egg supply...
There's a Costco nearby, but I am not a member (Sam's Club through work and I don't want to pay for a membership when I have one free). There's also a Farmer's Market in Decatur that probably has good eggs.
That's fair. Both Costco and Trader Joe's have been the most reliable sources for eggs for us, hence the recommendation. If you're able to get to a farmer's market that may work too, though I find their prices to be quite high even in times of normal supply ('cause economics of scale, I imagine).
In 1950, my grandfather had a meat market and grocery store. He raised and butchered cattle, hogs and more than 5000 chickens. They were raised mostly for meat but every day one of my chores was to collect two or three dozen eggs. No bird flu or other health problems with small scale livestock and poultry farming. Hundreds of similar farms operated in NE Georgia.
Today, any livestock or poultry disease affects thousands of cattle and hogs and millions of birds guaranteed to cause regional and national shortages. Centralizing supply sources for any commodity might be relatively efficient but it comes with vulnerability.
...and the shortages and even famine will continue to be more and more of a threat as we faster approach the rapture of the church, and the 7 year tribulation period on Earth.