Why Are Egg Prices So High? When Will They Return to Normal?
What’s up with the ridiculously high cost of eggs? Simple. It’s bird flu. Well…maybe it’s not so simple. But once you’ve sorted through all the complexities of modern farming practices, government policy, world economics, and what all of that has to do with the price of beans in China, it really comes down to one thing. Eggs are expensive pretty much entirely because of bird flu. Maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, it’s bird flu. How do we fix it? Is anybody trying to fix it? When will I be able to scramble a few eggs without putting a second mortgage on my house?’
Oh. Well. Sorry. Don’t look at me. I’m just a blogger. I can’t solve your problems. But maybe I can answer some of your questions. Read on and I’ll do my best.
The current flavor of bird flu that’s killing chickens and other birds in the US and around the world has been named HPAI H5N1 (clade 2.3. 4.4b). That’s probably not important to remember unless you’re a microbiologist. But if you do remember it, you’ll sound really smart if anybody should happen to ask. Or you could casually drop it into a conversation the next time you’re hanging out with friends…and you’ll sound really smart!
HPAI H5N1 (clade 2.3. 4.4b) was first detected in the US in 2022—just as Covid was waning. In the early months of this new bird flu epidemic I wrote a three-part series of articles on bird flu. The information I wrote in those three-year-old articles is still relevant because that bird flu epidemic is still with us! And that’s surprising a lot of people. Past bird flu outbreaks in U.S. poultry flocks have come and gone. The strict U.S. bird flu public health efforts that have been in effect for a lot of years have always worked. But not this time. This tenacious and horrible little virus is not even slowing down. To date (April 2025) over 166 million commercial poultry birds have been culled. Egg prices have increased astronomically. It’s in cats now, and over 80 other mammal species. It’s in dairy herds in multiple states; thus, it’s in dairy products (the virus is dead as long as the milk has been pasteurized). Any number of people have become infected, and now, in January of this year, the first human has died.
A lot of people have a lot of questions. Thus, I decided it’s time for an update to my 2022 bird flu articles. Since I’m a chicken blogger and my audience is mostly people who keep backyard chickens, I planned on writing about the effect of the bird flu epidemic on those people and their backyard birds. But, as I began writing, questions surrounding price of eggs and how that affects all of us kept creeping into my text.
The price of eggs is not the main concern of backyard chicken folks. Actually, it’s not a concern at all since eggs magically appear out there in the coop every single day! But the rising cost of eggs definitely is the main concern of you folks who find your eggs at the local grocery store. And since there are a lot more of you than there are backyard chicken keepers, that’s where I’m going to start. In my next article, I’ll circle back and talk specifically about bird flu as a disease, and how it could affect backyard flocks. But for now, I’m going to start with that main, troubling question:
Why are egg prices so high?
If you get your eggs from the store rather than the backyard coop, you are painfully aware of egg prices. The April 2025 consumer price index shows that eggs prices are over 60% higher than a year ago, compared to a rise of 3% for food in general.
It’s all about supply and demand. Between the beginning of 2022 and April 2025, 166 million poultry have been affected by bird flu. “Affected” means that they either succumbed to the disease or were euthanized because they were in a flock with sick birds. Compared to early 2022 there are currently 9% fewer laying hens. Fewer hens mean fewer eggs. Fewer eggs mean higher egg prices. We all learned in Econ 101 that when demand exceeds supply, it creates a market imbalance that leads to shortages, higher prices, or both. In the case of eggs, consumer demand is inelastic—egg buyers want, need, and will buy eggs regardless of the price. So as the supply shrinks, the price will go up.
This actually creates a lucrative situation for egg producers. All egg producers are charging higher prices for the eggs they sell, whether or not they’ve lost hens due to bird flu. Cal-Maine, the largest egg producer in the U.S., saw 2023 gross profits that were seven times larger than 2021. Cal-Maine’s flocks were not affected by avian flu during that period. Cal-Maine’s shareholder dividends in FY 2023 were $250 million—that was 40 times more than the previous fiscal year.
Large egg producers that have lost flocks are not suffering as calamitously as they could be. They are compensated for their losses. Most large egg producers participate in federal biosecurity programs designed to reduce the likelihood of bird flu outbreaks. As participants, these producers receive “compensation and indemnity” payments when they depopulate their flu-infected flocks. The federal government paid egg producers $1.25 billion for compensation and indemnity between January 2022 and November 2024.
Wholesale Egg Prices (USDA)
Why are eggs expensive and scarce at the supermarket but not chicken?
Egg prices are way high but the price of chicken hasn’t gone up that much. What’s up with that? Because chickens are chicken are chickens, right?
Well, yes and no. All chickens are susceptible to bird flu. But the chicken breeds that lay eggs and those that are raised for meat are two very different birds.
Layers are bred for laying lots of eggs. Layer pullets lay their first eggs between four and six months after they hatch and continue laying until they are shipped off to the slaughterhouse when they are around two years old.
Meat chickens (aka broilers), are bred for rapid weight gain. Broiler chickens are sent to the slaughterhouse something like two months after they hatch. Most broiler chickens have terrible, short lives and are chopped into nuggets when they are still babies—but that’s a story for another day. The point is that they exist for such a short time that they have less time to be infected with bird flu. Thus, to date, the supply of broiler chickens has not been an issue.
Is a backyard flock a good solution to high egg prices?
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was riffing on Fox News about the new USDA plan to control bird flu (more about that later in this article) and mentioned, in passing, that keeping backyard chickens was a strategy for cheaper eggs. “People are sort of looking around thinking, ‘Wow, well maybe I can get a chicken in my backyard,’ and it’s awesome.,” she said.
I was amused at her ignorance until she went on to say that she and her daughters actually had a backyard flock. Then I was just mystified. Because, take it from me, if you want to find your way to cheap eggs, backyard chickens ain’t it.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m really, really pro-backyard chickens! I blog about backyard chickens! If you go to my blog’s “About Me” tab the very last statement says, “If you have the means and desire to keep some chickens, go for it!” But, please note, I don’t say anything about cheap eggs. As a matter of fact, more than once I’ve said something like: “You can become a millionaire by keeping a backyard flock and selling eggs. The only condition is that you have to start out as a billionaire.”
Joyce Vance, a columnist for MSNBC and a backyard chicken keeper said in a recent article: “…keeping chickens is not for the faint of heart. There is nothing like getting up at 6 a.m. in the pouring rain to slog through your backyard to the coop. Chickens need fresh food and fresh water. Every day. All day….[The chicken feed] is expensive and those 40-pound bags are heavy! Then there’s the water situation…When the temperatures dip below freezing, I take a page from “Little House on the Prairie,” banging the watering dishes against a stone wall to break the ice.”
Alliant Credit Union did an enlightening “Money Mentor” piece on the cost of backyard chickens. Their analysis was strictly financial and did not explore the time and effort involved a backyard flock. Their breakdown in a nutshell: A $500 outlay for the coop. $60 for the hens. Chicken feed and supplies; $80 per month. They didn’t include vet bills in their analysis.
Joyce Vance sums up the “backyard chickens for cheap eggs” philosophy this way; “So, here’s the truth about chickens. We don’t keep them for eggs, not really. They’re pets…Get chickens if you want to —and obviously many Americans cannot, for a number of reasons. But don’t do it thinking you’ll save money — because you probably won’t.”
When will prices return to normal?
President Trump campaigned with a pledge of bringing down the high cost of eggs. “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day One,” he proclaimed in August 2024.
And while President Trump is claiming that egg prices have, in fact, come down, government reports show a more complicated picture. The USDA Egg Market Overview shows a decline in the wholesale prices, mostly due to a decline avian flu cases. But the retail price—what the egg eating public pays at the grocery store—has remained high, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The president has little or no control over egg prices,” says Michigan State University food economist David Ortega. Why? Because prices are driven by supply and demand. Many people depend and rely on eggs as an important part of their diet. They complain about the high price of eggs, but they don’t stop buying them—thus the demand remains high. And the supply is uncertain because of avian flu.
Assuming that the public’s demand for eggs is not going to change, the way back to lower egg prices is based entirely on a successful government strategy to curb avian flu. In February, Secretary of Agriculture Rollins released an official plan, a “five-pronged strategy,” to constrain avian flu and get the cost of eggs under control. If any of prongs of this plan ultimately eradicates avian flu, then egg prices will go down. Can we expect lower prices in the near future? These are complex, long-term strategies. Don’t expect lower prices overnight. What are these “prongs” and how do they work? I’ll explain them as they’ve been presented by the USDA in my next article. Will they work? Time will tell.
