28-02-2025
If there's an egg shortage, how come there's no chicken shortage? A farmer explains why.
We are paying record-high prices for eggs. Sometimes you can't find them, or they are limited to one dozen per customer.
At the same time, at the same store, you can get chicken breasts or thighs no problem. No supply issues at all. What gives? Well, that's exactly what so many of you asked us.
Denise K. was one of several people who sent an email to our Question Everything inbox. She asked, "Here's a real head scratcher, why are eggs so hard to find but there's plenty of chicken to buy?"
Unlike "why did the chicken cross the road?" we figured this would be easy enough to answer. So, WBZ's David Wade visited Nallie Pastures Farm in Dracut. Stephen Hall is the owner. He became a farmer a decade ago after quitting a boring job in business.
"I started 10 years ago with seven chickens," said Hall.
Now Hall has two pieces of land, 300 hens and 400 more on the way. He's been a busy man selling eggs and meat at his farm and at local farmers' markets.
Why are eggs hard to find?
Wade asked Hall, "why are eggs hard to find but there's plenty of chicken to buy?"
"The answer to that is it takes a chicken 20 weeks to get a chicken to egg laying age," Hall said.
He explained that when a farm must destroy egg laying chickens because of the spread of bird flu, it takes at least five months to get new hens to that egg laying age again.
"Just the main problem is that it's going to take so long to get that replacement flock," Hall said.
It's a formula for trouble. Fewer egg laying chickens means fewer eggs in the grocery store. Less supply with more demand means higher prices.
But not for the meat of the chicken. Why? Well, first off, they're two different kinds of chickens.
Two types of chickens
Chicken breasts, wings and thighs fill the refrigerators and freezers at Hall's farm. It all comes from a "meat" chicken. It's also known as a "broiler", and it's bred different than a hen.
"A meat chicken is much wider, grows quicker," Hall said.
A broiler is bred for rapid growth. It goes quickly from a little chick to processing in less than two months. They're very quickly replaced. Because of the short lifespan, there is also less time to be infected with bird flu. So, supply hasn't been an issue.
Egg laying chickens, or hens, are far more susceptible to bird flu. According to the USDA, of the 160 million birds that have been killed during the outbreak, 77% of them are egg laying hens. The hens simply live longer, so they have more exposure.
