Big Bend Poultry Farmers Scramble to Fight Back Egg-flation

Feb 06, 2023

By Adrian Andrews

Egg farmers and consumers in the Florida Panhandle are facing an “egg-normous” dilemma. The Consumer Price Index notes that just within the past year egg prices have increased by 60%.

Part of that is driven by the presence of an avian influenza that spreads swiftly among birds. The US Department of Agriculture has been tracking the virus since July of last year, but that’s not the only factor behind the rise in egg costs.

Gigi Carroll owns Whitetail Hollow Farms and regularly sells her eggs at the Havana Farmers Market. She said the cost of chicken feed is also going up.

“To combat the cost of feed we are resurrecting our farm from stationary hoop coops to mobile coops that will be moved daily on pasture to offset the need for supplemental feed,” Carroll said in a text message. “We are also reevaluating the breeds we use for layers and only keeping the ones that produce the most number of eggs per year.”

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Video: What Happens When Pigs Adapt to High Soybean Meal Diets? - Gustavo Lima

In this special rerun episode of The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, Gustavo Lima, PhD candidate in Animal Science at Iowa State University, discusses how grow-finish pigs respond to high soybean meal diets. He explains the initial drop in feed intake, changes in backfat, later adaptation, energy efficiency, amino acid utilization, and the rise in nitrogen excretion at higher inclusion levels. Listen now on all major platforms!

Click here to read the full research article: https://academic.oup.com/jas/article/...

“Once they got adapted to the diet, they can handle higher levels of inclusion of soybean meal.”

Meet the guest: Gustavo Lima / gustavo-lima-a9867127 is a PhD candidate in Animal Science at Iowa State University whose work focuses on swine nutrition, ingredient characterization, energy metabolism, caloric efficiency, and applied data analysis. With more than 15 years of experience in swine production across Latin America, Gustavo also brings expertise in environmental control, performance evaluation, barn ventilation, and grow-finish housing. Learn more from Gustavo Lima on The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, available on all major platforms.