America's Egg Shortage Is About to Get a Whole Lot Worse

[Hydrogen]

The largest global bird flu outbreak in recorded history has combined with increased costs of fuel, feed and packaging to create a national egg shortage that's about to become worse.

Eggs are a staple that, for decades, have easily (and relatively cheaply) been purchased from grocery stores and stocked in kitchens, but they've become increasingly hard to come by or way more expensive in recent months. In some stores across the U.S., customers are limited in the amount of egg cartons they can buy.

One of the reasons behind the sudden shortage is the outbreak of bird flu that, after starting last year, has killed millions of birds in a dozen countries around the world, including poultry and wild birds. In the U.S., more than 58 million birds in 47 states have been affected, according to the Department of Agriculture.

But disruptions in the supply chain have also played a part in the current national shortage, as have inflation and the increased cost of gasoline and diesel last year. But while inflation was reined in by the end of last year, the price of eggs peaked in December, when the average cost for a dozen eggs in U.S. cities reached $4.25, $1.78 more than a year earlier.

The future, as Easter approaches, doesn't seem to bring a solution. The costs of fuel, transportation, feed and packaging have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. The bird flu, which usually hits during migration in spring only to once again disappear a few months down the line, did not come and go last year. It stayed, and it has given no signs of slowing.

The virus spreading among birds around the world is a new strain that is highly transmissible among the animals and incredibly deadly. Millions of birds worldwide have been put in lockdowns to avoid infection, while thousands were culled.

Less birds means fewer eggs, especially as the virus tends to affect older birds rather than the young ones consumed as meat. According to the Department of Agriculture, the culling of birds at commercial facilities in the U.S. has led to an average of a 7.5 percent drop in domestic egg supply each month since the outbreak began last year.

Additionally, in Bozrah, Connecticut, on Saturday, a fire burned for hours at the Hillandale Farms property before being extinguished, killing an unknown number of chickens. Unconfirmed media reports claimed that about 100,000 birds died in the fire.

As spring approaches, together with new wild bird migration, a new wave of infection is likely to hit American poultry.



https://www.newsweek.com/america-egg-shortage-about-get-whole-lot-worse-1777534

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Doesn't sound good:

The virus spreading among birds around the world is a new strain that is highly transmissible among the animals and incredibly deadly. Millions of birds worldwide have been put in lockdowns to avoid infection, while thousands were culled.

Less birds means fewer eggs, especially as the virus tends to affect older birds rather than the young ones consumed as meat. According to the Department of Agriculture, the culling of birds at commercial facilities in the U.S. has led to an average of a 7.5 percent drop in domestic egg supply each month since the outbreak began last year.

Could chickens and eggs be poised to become deflationary global commodities?

One of the major concerns during peak COVID was the virus becoming permanently resident in the environment. Due to it being transmissible to birds, cats, dogs, rats and other mammals. Initially it was claimed the virus spread from bats to humans in a meat market. Being contagious across a wide variety of mammals could allow for the virus to have little difficulty finding incubators and spreaders which could make it ubiquitous and inescapable.

Now it seems we have other issues with food supply infection. While there have been warnings for many years about over use of antibiotics in factory farming industries. I don't know that we have seen much of the warning signs penetrate through to public consciousness, until now.

Could circumstances deteriorate into a kind of chicken and egg prohibition. With mass cullings of infected chickens on one side, coupled with underground guerilla efforts to mass breed chickens and eggs for human consumption on the other?

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[jackg]

Are things qorse in the US because of chicken concentration? There were laws passed in Europe that now mean many caged eggs come from chickens that live in better quality than free range American ones. If chickens are kpet in crowded spaces they're probably going to end up spreading infection way faster than if they were allowed to roam but their chance of picking it up at first  was likely lower.

Eggs do seem cheaper than they should be (in the UK it felt like the packaging was more expensive than the eggs with 18 eggs only costing double what 6 did).

There's a lot of solutions to this problem though, one might be buying eggs and incubating them yourself and another would be to get larger birds on laying eggs so you can charge a higher price (either by selectively breading larger eggs or by selling eggs from a larger animal). There could also be moves to remove eggs from recipes (ie cakes can survive off gluten instead).

[kryptqnick]

The current bird flu is pretty serious, and I think a serious shortage of eggs and/or a huge increase of the prices are possible. I think this might be the first time for many people to learn about the harsh conditions the birds are kept in, and the brutal policies used and, I suppose, required, to limit the spread of diseases (if one bird in a whole compartment is sick, all others are killed along with it).
Hopefully, this will lead to better regulations that ensure birds have more space, even an the expense of the higher price.
Also, there are plenty of plant-based alternatives to eggs for various cases, so perhaps people will get to explore them more in an event of a shortage.

[adaseb]

We in Canada don't have an egg shortage according to "Big Egg Canada" but I can see it becoming a problem because whenever I go to the  grocery store people are stocking up on eggs and it'll create these artificial shortages.

This is more or less what happened with toilet paper back in 2020. People read about it on the news and they panicked and bought everything within the same week and thats how the shortages happened. An imbalance of logistics and anything can become scarse. So this is why even me, which barely eats many eggs, I try to stay stocked for the next month or so. However they expire so you can't buy too much of it.

[Smartprofit]

We in Canada don't have an egg shortage according to "Big Egg Canada" but I can see it becoming a problem because whenever I go to the  grocery store people are stocking up on eggs and it'll create these artificial shortages.

This is more or less what happened with toilet paper back in 2020. People read about it on the news and they panicked and bought everything within the same week and thats how the shortages happened. An imbalance of logistics and anything can become scarse. So this is why even me, which barely eats many eggs, I try to stay stocked for the next month or so. However they expire so you can't buy too much of it.

If desired, chickens can be bred even in an apartment building in a big city. 

Even easier if you have your own or rented cottage outside the city.  Breeding chickens is very simple, and they provide not only eggs, but also delicious dietary meat. 

In my country there is no ban on breeding laying hens. 

Perhaps in other countries there are legal restrictions on raising chickens at home? 

In such cases, in my opinion, it is necessary to lobby for amendments to the regulations.  Natural human rights also lie in the freedom to provide oneself with high-quality and natural food.

[Nhazwrath]

seems like a local problem to the states. 

Canada doesnt currently have this problem.

[Hydrogen]

If desired, chickens can be bred even in an apartment building in a big city.  

That could be accurate.

Man Houses Tiger, Alligator in Harlem Apartment

NEW YORK – A tiger and an alligator found in a Manhattan apartment were sent to wildlife sanctuaries in Ohio and Indiana on Sunday while their owner recovered from bite wounds inflicted by the more than 400-pound cat.

Police said Antoine Yates, 31, would face reckless endangerment charges after he gets out of a hospital in Philadelphia, where he fled. He was listed in good condition.

Yates said the tiger grabbed him and "tore open my whole leg down to the bone." Yates told Philadelphia TV station KYW in a phone interview from his hospital bed that he was "trying to create a Garden of Eden, something that this world lacks."

A team of animal control officers, police and Bronx Zoo (search) workers removed the animals from Yates' fifth-floor apartment in a Harlem housing project on Saturday.

Wes Artope, director of the city's animal shelters, said the tiger, an orange and white Siberian-Bengal mix (search), had been kept in the apartment since he was a 6-week-old cub. The 20-month-old tiger now weighs at least 425 pounds, Artope said.

"He's huge," Artope said.

The tiger and the 5-foot-long alligator (search), both in good condition, were taken first to a local shelter, then to a Long Island animal sanctuary and then to Ohio, Artope said.

https://www.foxnews.com/story/man-houses-tiger-alligator-in-harlem-apartment

This guy had a tiger weighing 400 pounds and a 5 foot long alligator housed inside his apartment.

Raising a few chickens would be easy mode for him.

[Lucius]

I noticed that the price of eggs and chicken went up, but I didn't connect it to the bird flu, because for some reason this news was not widely reported in the EU. However, it seems that last year was marked as "the most devastating" in the EU in the last few years, which probably affects the prices of poultry products.

It seems that our chickens and turkeys will soon have to be vaccinated, and what will happen to wild birds, will they also be caught and vaccinated?

Europe has been gripped by its "most devastating" ever outbreak of bird flu in the past year, European health authorities said on Tuesday as experts study the feasibility of vaccinations.

Between October 2021 and September 2022, around 2,500 outbreaks of bird flu were detected on farms in 37 European countries, the European Food Safety Authority, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the EU said.

In that time "some 50 million birds were slaughtered" on affected farms, the EFSA reported.

[yhiaali3]

Here in my country, there has also been a significant increase in the prices of chicken and eggs, but the reason is most likely not because of the spread of disease, but rather because of the increase in the prices of chicken feed, as a natural result of inflation and the rise in fuel prices.

The other reason is that at such times of the year, when the cold increases dramatically, this leads to the death of larger numbers of chickens, in addition to the increase in the cost of fuel needed for heating. This is another reason for the high production costs that lead to an increase in prices.

[franky1]

boring .. not a world economic concern of lasting effect. its a temporary drama event

firstly
bird flu does not affect eggs. it affects living breathing birds

cull all chickens but keep the eggs.
it means temporary no chicken. no retail egg in stores.
they had the no chicken event in november- december
incubate the eggs.
then just wait 21 days for eggs to hatch
hatch the eggs. = new chicks.
wait for chicks to grow to full size (2-3 months)

bird flu gone
total time 5 months.

thus temporary problem not a mass endless thing

bird flu can be dealt with within a few months..
if people cant have eggs.. there a 1,000,000 food alternatives to fill their mouths for a few months

[so98nn]

Oh so the problems of America are still exploding like surprise party every now and then. Tell me one thing about america that is going in the right direction excluding their problems.  Is it getting peculiar to see different sort of problems that are rising in America lately? Has it got in connection with the country's increasing debts and thus someone wants them to be grounded as powerful nation around the globe? It could be something like that. Most of the times conspiracy's open up like this only. Slowly but steadily and one day everything explodes into war.

First america is getting into debts, second inflation is so much that jobs are getting cut down like loosing water from the hands. They are short of electricity outputs. Loosing money in the debts over revenue generation.
They have increased threats from different countries as they prosper with other conjoining friends.

And now most important, the food chain is going down. They gotta see it through.

[hatshepsut93]

Could chickens and eggs be poised to become deflationary global commodities?

What do you mean by "deflationary"? When there's rapid inflation, everything that increases in value is "deflationary". But no one is going to buy chicken or eggs just because they are deflationary, like a speculative asset. They obviously require a lot of effort to store and have a limited life. They need to be consumed asap.

Anyway, the market and technology will solve this crisis, just like thousands of other market crisises where solved in the past.

[so98nn]

Could chickens and eggs be poised to become deflationary global commodities?

What do you mean by "deflationary"? When there's rapid inflation, everything that increases in value is "deflationary". But no one is going to buy chicken or eggs just because they are deflationary, like a speculative asset. They obviously require a lot of effort to store and have a limited life. They need to be consumed asap.

Anyway, the market and technology will solve this crisis, just like thousands of other market crisises where solved in the past.

Well its not store value or something for working group, but it is for the farmer or horticulturist. For them this would be more than business model to cultivate the eggs, reproduce, get more eggs, reproduce and so on to fulfill the market demand. Let us not forget that its business for them which means they will either increase the prices for it since they have to buy feed, give heat, protect from diseases and have quality checks before they can be sent for the consumer market.

On the other hand, I am pretty sure peeps will keep buying them from the market irrespective of the cost that is increasing. Eventually we live through inflations, we understand the price hikes and do everything that we could to keep the life circle on going.

[arallmuus]

Let us not forget that its business for them which means they will either increase the prices for it since they have to buy feed, give heat, protect from diseases and have quality checks before they can be sent for the consumer market.

Also at the same time the price for fodder and all those stuff in hen raising will increase as well thus incurring inflation but yeah we all lived through inflation. Aside from that, bird flu is pretty common nowadays and it seems I've read alot of headlines about bird flu for the past 3 years and nothing major has happened so far


Anyway, I think the title of this thread is abit on the exaggeration side

[Cryptomultiplier]

Still hasn't made it to headline on major news outlets.
The measures taken to contain the previous bird flu  should be revised while new vaccines are developed to curb the flu. Its America, the issue won't take long before being sorted, otherwise Kentucky fried chicken and other business that rely on poultry produce will run at losses and more.
Sincerely though, it couldn't get as worse as the covid-19.

[DrBeer]

I once worked with a large manufacturing company on an IT project, which was engaged in breeding chickens and, of course, eggs. I do not remember the livestock - but definitely millions. Huge territories near Kyiv, huge hangars, feed storage facilities, infrastructure .... And I witnessed a massive loss of young hens. I can’t speak for all manufacturers, but here the situation was as follows:
1. Containment conditions - very good, segmented into separate huge hangars, heating, separate air supply / ventilation, electricity, water.
2. Planned cleaning of hangars from traces of vital activity.
3. Vaccination of livestock (yes, at first I myself thought it was not possible, but it turns out - it is possible)

I don’t remember the name of the virus, but it turned out that the cause of the death of the livestock of 1 hangar was a human factor. They mixed up the reporting, and the hangar got into the lists of "vaccinated", without going through the vaccination procedure ...

I mean - yes, there are diseases that can destroy a huge livestock, but I'm sure that the pharmaceutical industry is ready to provide the necessary vaccines. And the problem is just "sucking from the finger" for some other purpose

[Hydrogen]

What do you mean by "deflationary"? When there's rapid inflation, everything that increases in value is "deflationary".

While prices can increase on diminishing supply.

Don't forget that they can also increase through rising demand. Growing demand for COVID vaccines drove pharmaceutical profits higher, despite the supply of vaccines being inflationary.

When I say deflationary, I guess what I mean is circumstances where supply of an item carries a high probability of diminishing. With it being extremely unlikely that the decreasing supply can be reversed. Or that alternatives might be found.

If peak oil is real, it could be considered an example of a deflationary condition that could be difficult or impossible to reverse. Investing in assets and commodities which carry a high probability of being deflationary over the long term, could be a good investment strategy.

[franky1]

firstly chickens are sustainable-renewable.. thus not supply deflationary

deflations and inflations are measured and declared.. like bull and bears ..AFTER they occured for a 6 month period.

thus by the time a chicken crisis is announced, the crisis is nearly over
(all the chickens are already culled, the cleanup is done the next week. the eggs of the next generation hatch 21 days after being layed (so 14 days after cleanup) and the chickens after hatching reach slaughter maturity within a couple months.
so 3 months cycle between generations
way below the 6 month threshold of being a 'deflations' temporary event

..
secondly. if your looking to buy chickens.. they dont last long. they have use-by dates before they rott/get frost bit. and the resale value is not as good as the retail price.. no one wants to buy a second hand chicken off a neighbour when they can get an fresh one from a shop

also if your only investing in temporary supply shortage things, once the event is mid-near end.. your too late
yep by the time normal people hear about issues. the issue is nearly already subsided

however lets take oil and bitcoin.. which is totally  different
lets take bitcoin no one wants to buy at the ATH. as thats too late. everyone should be buying at the dip/correction/pre-hype (buy low sell high).. not at the tip of a ATH

bitcoin is a finite supply. once all 20999999999xxx000 satoshi's are mined. thats it
oil is a finite supply. once all oil wells are sucked dry.. thats it

but as said with both oil and bitcoin.. never buy the hype of a periodic ATH.. buy the low
buy low sell high
buy lull sell hype
buy dip sell tip