As the outbreak of Avian flu H5N2 continues to spread to more poultry farms across the Midwestern USA, the prices for eggs, chicken and turkey will increase. Market experts say grocery stores and wholesalers are trying to stock up on eggs.
The cost of a dozen large eggs has jumped nearly 17 percent to $1.39 a dozen from $1.19 since mid-April when the H5N2 began appearing in Iowa's chicken flocks and farmers culled their flocks to contain any spread. Neighboring Nebraska reported its first case of bird flu Tuesday, affecting 1.7 million chickens at an egg farm in Dixon County.
A much bigger price increase has emerged in the eggs used as ingredients in processed products such as cake mix and mayonnaise. The disruption in the supply chain has caused those egg prices to have jumped 63 percent to $1.03 a dozen from 63 cents in the last three weeks.
Turkey prices, which had been expected to fall this year, are up slightly as the bird flu claimed about 5.6 million turkeys nationwide so far. About 238 million turkeys were raised in the U.S. last year.
The price of fresh boneless and skinless tom breast meat primarily used for deli meat has risen 10 percent since mid-April to $3.37 a pound, a USDA report said Friday. Frozen hens in the 8- to 16-pound range, those often used for home roasting, were up about 3 percent to $1.06 a pound.
The number of Iowa chickens lost exceeds 26 million, the vast majority of which lay eggs for food use. That's about 41 percent of the leading egg state's layers and about 8 percent of the nation's laying hens. That many chickens would lay more than 500 million table eggs a month. For comparison, Iowa chickens laid 1.4 billion table eggs in March, before the disease struck. U.S. egg production for March stood at 7.42 billion table eggs.
The poultry industry can replenish the supply of chickens more quickly than beef or pork industries can rebound, but it still takes time to rebuild a flock.
It normally takes about four months for a hatched chick to be old enough to begin laying eggs, and it will typically be productive for about two years. Many of the hens dying from the disease are younger and no pullets had been planned to replace them yet. More than 350,000 pullets have been lost to bird flu - a very small portion of the 50 million egg-type chicks hatched in March, but it compounds the replenishment problem.