Wisconsin Egg Production Cut in Half as Farms Struggle With Avian Flu, Higher Expenses

Jun 17, 2026

By Hope Kirwan

Egg production in Wisconsin is less than half of what it was a year ago, reflecting a major decline in the number of laying hens in the state.

That’s according to the latest data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Wisconsin produced 91.7 million eggs in April, the latest month available. That’s down 57 percent from the same month in 2025.

The data shows there were 3.69 million laying hens in the state. It’s 56 percent lower than the previous April, when Wisconsin had 8.3 million birds.

The state’s total laying hens fell dramatically last September, after Daybreak Foods’ farm in Jefferson County was hit by avian influenza and culled more than 3 million birds.

Laying hen numbers started to rally in December into February. But numbers fell sharply again in March after three different locations — each with more than 1 million birds — were forced to cull their flocks due to avian flu, including the same farm in Jefferson County.

Ron Kean, poultry specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension, said it takes time for a farm to recover from an infection. Producers have to cull their flocks and compost the dead birds, before sanitizing their facilities.

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Video: There’s a Whole Barn Buried Under This Field Now

There's old hog barns under that field now. The old hog barn site on the farm has been sitting there for decades, and this is the week it finally came out: concrete pad, burn pile, charred lumber, all of it loaded into a CAT 725C rock truck and buried in a pit we dug back in the timber.

Tork's been waiting his whole life to drive one of these, so he gets the keys to a 50,000 pound rock truck and I ride shotgun. The excavator loads, the dozer clears the timber, the drone shows the whole site from above, and by sundown there's nothing left of the old place but a smooth patch of dirt. It's a weird feeling erasing something that was here before either of us, but the farm has to keep moving.