California egg prices at record high as bird flu decimates farms. Relief months away
If you are fond of dyeing eggs for Easter, you may want to think twice as a nationwide shortage of eggs is driving prices to record highs.
Experts lay the blame on an outbreak of avian influenza, or bird flu. The highly contagious disease has caused the loss of 159.3 million commercial poultry, wild birds, and backyard poultry in the U.S. since February 2022.
And relief could be months away as farms repopulate their barns.
In December, the virus was responsible for the loss of 13.2 million birds and that trend has continued into the first six weeks of 2025 as federal officials confirmed outbreaks in eight states, including Arizona, California, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Washington.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, in January the Consumer Price Index for eggs increased 15.2% — 153% over the level a year ago, with an average price of $4.95 per dozen, up $0.81 per dozen from last month.
In California, eggs are more expensive due to a combination of factors including higher production costs, bird flu and the requirement that eggs be raised in a cage-free system. In January, a dozen eggs in California cost nearly $9, up about 70% since the previous month.
Could vaccinating birds help against flu?
Elected officials have pushed for relief from high prices while also encouraging the USDA to develop a vaccine to combat the bird flu.
U.S. Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, along with other congressional representatives, has introduced a bill aimed at making sure poultry farmers, especially those in the San Joaquin Valley, are fairly compensated for their losses.
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said President Trump needs to be held accountable for his promise to lower food prices for Americans.
“Vaccinating all laying hens in the United States against HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) will help lower egg prices for consumers, decrease production losses for farmers and ultimately decrease the cost to taxpayers through reduced indemnity payments,” Heinrich wrote in a news release.
Not everyone in the poultry industry is on the vaccine bandwagon. Producers of broiler chickens, or those raised for meat, have foreign buyers that are reluctant to buy vaccinated birds. About 15% of the U.S. poultry is exported, with Mexico and China being the largest customers.
Maurice Pitesky, a faculty member at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine-Cooperative Extension, said the call for vaccines is growing louder as the poultry body count rises.
“If used effectively, a vaccination could reduce the potential economic impact of the disease,” Pitesky said. “But it has to be flexible and robust to deal with what strains are floating around out there.”
Repercussions of rising egg costs
Faced with limited supplies, some grocery stores have placed limits on how many cartons a customer can purchase. In restaurants, that three-egg omelet is likely going to cost you more for breakfast.
The situation has become so dire that some have resorted to using alternative methods of sourcing lower-priced eggs.
In Southern California, Customs and Border Patrol agents report a rise in eggs being smuggled in from Mexico, according to a report from NBC San Diego.
Eggs from Mexico are among the food and agriculture products that are not allowed in the U.S. due to the potential for carrying a pest or disease.
How long before egg prices start dropping? Economists and poultry industry officials say it could take several months. For starters, it takes a young hen about 16 to 24 weeks to produce an egg, or up to six months.
“It is going to take a while before farmers are able to repopulate their barns,” said Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation. “And as they do that, there is still a concern about making sure the new birds don’t get infected.”
Mattos said poultry farmers practice very stringent biosecurity measures, including disinfecting and limiting people from coming onto the farm. But they can’t control everything, especially migrating wild birds that are known carriers of bird flu.
Bird flu outbreaks could hurt smaller farmers permanently
Experts have pointed out that the battle against the bird flu is not a new one. There have been previous outbreaks from 2000 to 2024, but this one is different. It is more sustained and has killed more birds.
“What we have seen for almost the last three years is that avian influenza keeps coming back,” said Dan Sumner, director of the University of California Giannini Foundation for Agricultural Economics.
“And what we have done is control it with depopulation, and that has worked in the past. But this time, that isn’t happening.”
Sumner suspects that this latest round of bird flu could be enough to knock some smaller poultry farmers out of business.
“Some hen houses in California,” he said, “are not reopening.”
This story was originally published February 20, 2025 at 1:09 PM with the headline "California egg prices at record high as bird flu decimates farms. Relief months away."
