Are egg producers inflating prices during the bird flu outbreak to boost profits?

It's capitalism, baby!

A rare inversion of Betteridge's law of headlines is "whenever someone questions whether or not the rich and powerful are exploiting everyone, the answer is yes"

What you're saying is true in fact, but I feel like you're letting the price gougers off the hook a little. Eggs are popular because they're versatile, nutritionally dense and traditionally cheap. Eggs are almost the best breakfast kids can have before school because they help with focus and keep them full. There really isn't a replacement at the same price point. I don't think we should expect them to be so cheap that we rely on animal cruelty, but they shouldn't be a luxury item either.

EDIT: to clarify, it's the protein and fat that help with focus and fullness, not eggs specifically.

Food too expensive? Just don't eat.

Haven't bought eggs all year. Not over $4. Of course, for me, they're just a nice treat...shoyu eggs make a great snack; egg baked on khachapuri; fried over rice. Some people, they're a key protein, or essential to cakes & cookies. I figure, if the price is high, then leaving them on the shelf makes more available where they're irreplaceable, but I can still feel bad for people who have to pay that price.

And people have to understand that Marie Antoinette said the same line and it started the french revolution.

Yeah people act like this hasn't been going on for years at this point.

I'm sure if you offered to buy an entire field of pumpkins they would work with you on the price. It's sort of how trade works.

The possibility of losing their entire flock of chickens is a pretty reasonable concern right now.

What's a "pun'kin"?

I'm guessing it's a quantity of eggs, but Google isn't helping.

How much human food can you feed a chicken before they get sick?

The vaccination effort would increase man hour costs and the cost of the vaccines. Can’t do anything that might affect profits.

They were told they are supposed to do it. Anyone who complains should be shown MAGAs support for it all the way through.

I mean, the article keeps mentioning "egg producers" which can only mean the chickens themselves. No human can actually produce the kind of eggs you want in your omelettes.

It comes down to upbringing. I rarely had eggs for breakfast growing up but my partner had eggs every morning. They strongly prefer 2-3 eggs every morning so we go through a dozen a week. I maintain 2 dozen in the fridge at all times to cover spikes for lunch/diner uses.

We also have no kids. Some people with 2 or 3 kids also grew up on eggs so that's a dozen gone in a day or two. That's several dozen a week.

Some people have been having one or three eggs every day for the past 60 years. For me, I just stopped eating eggs, for these people it's harder. It's dumb but what isn't?

Just a reminder that a scant couple years ago, egg prices skyrocketed under claims of inflation..and were cut in half almost overnight when Harris threatened RICO investigations.

Which also had supermarkets like Kroger coming forward to admit to gouging (to prevent investigations into other shit they were doing)

A few states, like California, have minimum cage size mandates, so people in the state are banned from using eggs in the general pool, and so the shortage is worse there.

EDIT: Though it does mean more eggs for people in the no-minimum-cage-size restriction states, so it brings prices down a bit for them.

My understanding is that there are different breeds of chickens used for eggs and meat.

This came up earlier in the outbreak for two reasons:

• Egg-laying chickens apparently take longer to age to the point where they produce eggs than meat chickens do before they are killed, so it takes longer to replace the producing stock of chickens.
• Meat chickens are apparently more resistant to the present strain than egg chickens, and are not impacted as badly.

That did make me hope that one could try to produce a hybrid egg chicken that could maybe also be more resistant.

kagis

Ah, this mentions both factors. Thought I'd need to dig up an article for each.

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/egg-prices-shortage-chicken-question-everything/

"It takes 20 weeks to get a chicken to egg-laying age," Hall explained. "The main problem is that it's going to take so long to get that replacement flock."

So when a farm has to destroy egg-laying chickens because of the spread of bird flu, it takes at least five months to get new hens to that egg-laying age again. 

It's a formula for trouble. Fewer egg-laying chickens means fewer eggs in the grocery store. Less supply with more demand means higher prices. 

But it's not the case for chicken meat. Why? First off, eggs and the chicken meat you buy at the store come from two different kinds of chickens. 

Two types of chickens

The chicken breasts, wings and thighs that fill the refrigerators and freezers at Hall's farm come from a "meat" chicken. It's also known as a "broiler", and it's bred differently than a hen. 

"A meat chicken is much wider, grows quicker," Hall said. 

A broiler is bred for rapid growth. It goes from a little chick to processing in less than two months, so they are very quickly replaced. Because of their short lifespan, there is also less time to be infected with bird flu. Therefore, supply for broiler chickens hasn't been an issue. 

Egg-laying chickens, or hens, are far more susceptible to bird flu. According to the USDA, of the 160 million birds that have been killed during the outbreak, 77% of them are egg-laying hens. The hens simply live longer, so they have more exposure. 

At Nallie Pastures, egg prices have held at $8 a dozen. Hens there have all remained healthy and business is healthy too.

EDIT: Hmm. I take back the bit about meat chickens being more genetically-vulnerable. It sounds from this article like it's just that the need to keep them alive longer to reach egg production makes them more vulnerable, and other articles I dig up say the same thing. I probably just misunderstood some earlier article that said that egg chickens were more vulnerable to mean that they were more genetically-vulnerable.

I have experience with backyard chickens. Its a wonderful experience, chickens are surprisingly cool critters. And you will get the best eggs you've ever had. But you won't be saving any money lol. Still worth it.

Every person I've ever talked to who's done this has said they regretted it.

They last so much longer than the best before date.

You can't eat 12 eggs in 4 weeks?

Only exception is the Costco hot dog.

Yeah poor people just buy better food. Fucking idiots.

Do you have short term memory loss? They literally did the same thing in 2023.

This site is worse than reddit for hive mind