Crisis: Large-Scale Chicken and Turkey Farms

The Midwest's ongoing avian flu crisis is wreaking havoc on the region's large-scale egg and turkey farms. Last week alone, the US Department of Agriculture confirmed that the virus had turned up in more than 20 additional facilities in the region, condemning 4 million birds to euthanasia. Altogether, the H5N2 virus—"highly pathogenic" to birds, so far non-threatening to humans—has affected 168 sites and a jaw-dropping 36 million birds, the great bulk of them in Iowa and surrounding states. It's the largest avian flu outbreak in US history—and it has already wiped out 40 percent of the egg-laying flock h Iowa, the number-one egg-producing state in the US, according to The New York Times.

Bird Flu Is Slamming Factory Farms

The USDA says 38 million chickens must be killed to stop the spread of one of the worst outbreaks of avian flu in North America. Northwest Iowa officials are scrambling to dispose of the dead birds.

Midwest Farmers Rush To Dispose Of Chickens Killed

Be it scrambled, poached or sunny side up, the cost of egg breakfasts may jump by billions of dollars during the U.S.’s worst outbreak of bird flu, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said.

U.S. consumers will probably pay $7.5 billion to $8 billion more to buy eggs, an increase of at least 75 percent from last year, Goldman Sachs analysts including Jason English wrote in a report Wednesday. Packaged foods companies could find the ingredient in short supply, and McDonald’s Corp. will be most affected among major restaurant chains because it can’t easily pass on higher costs from its popular breakfast business.

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The packaged food industry, such as baking businesses and mayonnaise makers, is focusing on securing egg supplies regardless of price, according to Goldman Sachs.

Egg Consumers Face $8 Billion Bill

We include them [eggs] as an ingredient in our pancakes and grab them on muffins, biscuits, or croissants at fast food joints on our way to the office.

But we also eat eggs in quiches and flans, they hold our bread puddings together and bind stratas. We enjoy omelets both French and western. Egg salad remains a hugely popular sandwich filling and deviled eggs a beloved feature at picnics and church suppers.

An Ingredient: Eggs


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OPINION:

This COULD Be A Bigger-Deal Than Most Folks Realize.

( or thinking in terms of 'some' food-shortages )
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Having grown up on a cattle farm I blame this on the bovine. They don't like competition! Ever see those billboards and commercials with those cows sabotaging the chicken business? I'm telling you, the aliens have studied cows for years for a reason. They're methodical two-stomach having lunatics...the lot of them!

Down with chicken, up with burger!

Combined with California drought...people will really be hurting in the pocket book for food. reply to: FarleyWayne

a reply to: BlueJacket

Prices were already going up ... BEFORE this New-'Crisis'.


January 20, 2015 -
Price for a Carton of Eggs has gotten a Little Steep

If you’ve noticed that the price for a carton of eggs has gotten a little steep, you’re not dreaming.

This year, as California’s landmark chicken law goes into effect, agricultural economists predict that consumers will see a 10 percent to 40 percent hike in the cost of eggs. Some retailers were even seeing the economic effects of the new law before it started. For instance, on Thanksgiving day the average price of a dozen wholesale eggs shot up to $2, doubling in price from the start of the month. The holiday typically brings up demand, but experts speculate that California chicken farmers were already culling their flocks to meet the new legal requirements.

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Eggs at my local walmart have been $2.22 for 18 medium eggs are now $2.94.

Confinement farming is the worst invention man has ventured into.

Oh I know...its going going to be far worse come harvest is what Im implying. I am so thankful to have found our mini farm, free ranging chickens, perma culture, companion planting fruits beries veggies and herbs.

The answer to all these woahs is local, organic living.


a reply to: FarleyWayne

a reply to: FarleyWayne

I'm just glad that we have chickens here that produce eggs. They're free range, too.

a reply to: Skid Mark

Yep, and a friend was a bit surprised when they asked me if I was going to raise my prices for eggs, because of this.

I said no. The stores are already going to do that. As long as my chickens are still paying for their feed, there is no reason to raise my price.

What a mess they have on there hands, disposing of all those chickens. Poor chickens.

Avian flu is non threatening to humans so, we dont have to worry ? Also why is meat so expensive? Aren't they cloning animals these days?

originally posted by: Teeky
Avian flu is non threatening to humans so, we dont have to worry ? Also why is meat so expensive? Aren't they cloning animals these days?

Avian flu is a close cousin to the same stuff that burns through people every year. It wouldn't take much for this strain to mutate to become human-to-human infectious. In fact, humans can get it now, they just can't pass it between themselves easily like common flu.

There are two dangers - The avian flu jumps to swine as there are large swine farms in the same regions, especially Iowa. It would have a dual effect of wiping out pork again, and possibly spreading a novel flu strain to humans as swine flu is even more likely to cross species barrier than avian is.

Should this make the leap to people, and it's odd that the flu pandemic scare stories are all gone from the media, isn't it?, you can expect to see something like the Spanish Flu of 1918 in terms of virulence. It'll be the flu, but it'll kill a lot of people, mostly the young and healthy, because our immune systems will over-react to it as a novel strain they've never seen before. It'll be our immune systems, not the disease, that will kill us with things like cytokine storms.

If you study the 1918 pandemic, it's interesting to note that it actually began in Kansas. Not in China or anywhere else.

As a vegan let me be the one to point out there are egg alternatives. The fact though is people shop out of habit and just grab what they're used to. Then they get the shock at the register.

a reply to: Iamthatbish

It's more than that. Eggs and poultry were the last cheap, readily available protein between the drought, the reduced fishing stock quotas, the piglet diarrhea virus, and now this ... pretty much every protein has become (or will become) expensive. Add in the droughts in CA, and produce is also very expensive.

It is getting very hard to feed a family on cheap, whole food, forcing more and more people into the cheap overly processed aisles.

Vegan or no.

a reply to: ketsuko
I didn't know those were the last cheap non vegan proteins. I haven't bought thouse in almost a decade. I do understand the feed a family on a budget, my family eats more potatoes, rice and pasta than my waistline likes because my budget likes it.

originally posted by: Iamthatbish
a reply to: ketsuko
I didn't know those were the last cheap non vegan proteins. I haven't bought thouse in almost a decade. I do understand the feed a family on a budget, my family eats more potatoes, rice and pasta than my waistline likes because my budget likes it.

We eat a lot of fish, and we tend to eat pork and chicken to round that out.

I also keep a calculator in hand while we shop so I know approximately where we are spending wise. So, I am aware of how much certain items have been going up steadily. Butter is another one that's shot up.

I've been looking at non-traditional cuts. I've been researching hog maws for example. I don't think I could do chitterlings.

a reply to: ketsuko

Thanks for explaining that especially the reason why young and healthy individuals would succumb to a mutated flu. Oh and I'll be chilling on the bacon for a little while until the coast is clear. Scary times we are living in.