Egg prices are through the roof even as broader inflation is beginning to ease. AFBF Economist Bernt Nelson recently told the Washington Examiner that this year has been the worst in U.S. history for the avian flu. Because of its contagiousness, poultry farms that have affected animals end up having to cull their whole flocks.
Nelson said that Colorado recently suffered a particularly bad outbreak, in which about 1.3 million birds were affected. If each bird laid five eggs each week, that would be somewhere around 6.5 million eggs lost per week just due to that outbreak alone. “That kind of paints an image of where it’s at, and that’s really what has been responsible for driving prices up,” he said.