Egg prices are astronomical right now. It’s no secret that avian influenza, or bird flu, is to blame for those high prices. But just how does bird flu drive up the price of eggs? And how is this crisis being resolved?
The US poultry industry’s approach to containing the influenza epidemic that started in 2022 was to destroy flocks in which an outbreak occurred—that meant euthanizing many millions of birds. For an idea of the scope: In July 2019, the US had roughly one laying hen for every person in the country, about 340 million birds. As of February 2025, that number was down to about 290 million.
Fewer hens mean fewer eggs, and that creates an egg shortage. According to the very basics of supply and demand, greater scarcity of a product drives up its price. Now we’re seeing eggs selling for as much as $12 per dozen in some parts of the country. Some restaurants are adding a surcharge of more than $2.50 for dishes containing eggs, and others are listing eggs on their menus at “market rates” as they would fish or prime steaks.
The industry is scrambling to do just that. It only takes a few months to raise a chick from hatchling to egg layer, but the industry must do this over multiple generations to replace hens as they age out and achieve a stable, consistent egg supply. Unfortunately, that’s a much longer process that could take up to two years.
Researchers have been working on a vaccine, but the industry has been slow to push for one because of tension between the egg and meat-bird sectors. Companies that produce chickens for meat are heavily reliant on export markets. If American meat birds were vaccinated, every chicken sold overseas could contain some portion of the virus…either because it was naturally infected or because it was exposed to the virus through the vaccine. It is difficult and costly to discern the difference, so some countries may refuse to accept vaccinated birds. The result could be billions of dollars’ worth of lost exports.
The US Department of Agriculture has announced that it is investing $1 billion in a comprehensive, five-pronged plan for dealing with the epidemic—improved biosecurity to stop infections at farms…financial relief for affected farmers…regulatory relief to make it easier to bring eggs to market…studying the possibility of importing eggs to increase supply and bring down prices…and exploring the potential of a vaccination program.
But even if we could snap our fingers and make the epidemic stop today, its effects on egg prices would linger for many months to come.
