What’s Happening with Eggs? An Important Message from America’s Egg Farmers

Highly Pathogenic Avian influenza (HPAI) — also called “bird flu” — is a highly infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains of the influenza virus.

HPAI is carried by wild birds and is almost always fatal to poultry like chickens and turkeys. Bird flu is devastating to the egg farmers who care for these birds and depend on them for their livelihoods. America’s egg farmers work around the clock to protect their hens and farms from bird flu enforcing strict biosecurity measures to ensure the safety of the nation’s egg supply.

Eggs are sold on markets as commodities, like corn and wheat, and wholesale prices for eggs are driven largely by supply and demand.

Several things are temporarily affecting the price of eggs right now:

• As of February 10, 2025, we’ve lost more than 50 million laying hens in the last year to bird flu, and more than 30 million birds in 2025 alone.
• At the same time, the volume of eggs sold at retail has been up year-over-year for 23 months, and demand for the nutritious protein package that eggs provide is as strong as ever.
• These two forces combined—tight supply and high demand—are directly causing the spike in wholesale prices, and therefore retail prices we’ve seen recently, as well as intermittent shortages of eggs at some retail locations and in different parts of the country.

While we can’t predict the future, what we know right now is that our system is strained—and HPAI remains a clear and present threat to poultry flocks. It’s going to take a sustained period with no additional HPAI detections on egg farms to stabilize supply. Although egg farmers don’t control the price of eggs, they are doing everything they can to keep their costs down and supply as many eggs as they can.

We appreciate your patience as egg farmers work hard to get eggs on shelves. Depending on where you live, where you shop, what day you shop and even the time of day you’re shopping, you may run into a temporary shortage at the store. Don’t worry, egg farmers have a lot of experience working together to move eggs across the country to where they’re needed most—and that’s exactly what they’re doing now. We understand how frustrating it is when eggs are not available on a shopping trip, and we expect any shortages to be localized and short-lived as egg farmers work with their retail customers to replenish those stocks. Since eggs are perishable, deliveries to grocery stores are frequent, and cases are being restocked with fresh eggs often within 24 hours.

A dozen large eggs weigh about 1.5 pounds, and each large egg has six grams of protein, all for only 70 calories! Eggs remain a good value at the grocery store as one of the most affordable high-quality proteins per serving.

The USDA and the FDA say consumers can be confident in the safety of eggs, and the CDC reinforces that the current risk to the public remains low. With many safeguards in place, which include testing of flocks and federal inspection programs, the likelihood that eggs from infected poultry are in the retail market is low. The CDC also confirms that avian influenza cannot be transmitted through safely handled and thoroughly cooked eggs or poultry. To ensure food safety, always cook eggs to 160⁰ F.

Egg farmers are fighting bird flu with all their resources and doing all they can to prevent the disease on their farms, but bird flu remains a clear and present threat to laying flocks. America’s egg farmers are working around the clock to protect their hens and farms from bird flu and to ensure the safety of the nation’s egg supply.

Egg farmers have invested hundreds of millions of dollars on expansive on-farm biosecurity facilities, practices and equipment to protect their birds and keep this disease off their farms. Unfortunately, even the best biosecurity isn’t foolproof, and farmers continue to learn and improve these methods every day.

Keeping their birds safe and healthy is a top priority for every egg farmer—these birds are their livelihoods. Learn more about U.S. egg farms and hear more from a farmer about the stringent and comprehensive biosecurity measures they have in place:

News Link: North Carolina Farmer with 1.6 Million Hens Producing 1.2 Million Eggs a Day Gives Unique Insight into America’s Egg Shortage | Moneywise

The system of egg production is both complex and time sensitive, and it can take a year or more for an egg farm that has been affected by bird flu to return to full production. When an egg farm is impacted with HPAI, it must first go through multiple steps with government approvals before it can bring in new flocks of birds. This alone can take six months or longer.

Once the farm is ready to bring in new birds, egg farmers start with day-old chicks and raise them to young hens, which takes 18 to 20 weeks before the hens are ready to produce eggs. This process is repeated for each barn that needs to be refilled on a staggered schedule in order to ensure a steady supply of large, extra-large and jumbo eggs are being produced. Additional delays may result depending on the availability of new chicks, which are in high demand due to the number of egg farms currently recovering.

Egg farmers are working closely with state and federal animal health officials in response to HPAI cases. The American Egg Board and egg farmers believe innovative, effective approaches must be identified to respond to the devastation of HPAI, including collaborative, actionable solutions to limit HPAI’s impact on the nation’s egg farms.

The American Egg Board is what’s known as a national commodity check-off organization that works on behalf of America’s egg farmers. The American Egg Board is 100 percent farmer-funded, and those funds directly support the research, education and promotion necessary to market eggs. Learn more about the American Egg Board here.