However, “pullets — birds that are between chicks and adults — are up 5 percent,” she said. “The replenishment chain has been trying to reduce the short supply. We’re still hatching.”
While all those activities are easing the supply and prices, Thompson said “egg prices won’t be declining to 2021 levels.”
Worse than 2015
The current avian influenza outbreak is worse than 2015, which was considered the largest animal health event ever. Laying hens are turkeys are more susceptible than other poultry, Thompson said.
Some 50.4 million birds in 15 states were affected by the 2015 outbreak, but the current outbreak has affected 57.9 million birds in 47 states. In 2022, layers comprised 75 percent of the poultry affected by HPAI. Turkeys were next at 16 percent, followed by broilers at 4 percent and breeders at 3 percent. In 2022, Arkansas had HPAI in three flocks affecting 56,470 birds.
What’s difference?
The virus has adapted to not kill its host. “The wild birds are not as susceptible to it. Ducks and geese are not getting it as bad as turkeys and chickens” enabling a wider spread and giving the outbreak a longer life, Thompson said.
In 2015, “hot summers stopped the spread and we saw it die out,” Thompson said.
The only reason the current outbreak isn’t even worse is because industry and backyard flock owners are practicing biosecurity protocols learned from the 2015 outbreak.
“We have doubled down on biosecurity with truck washes, more personal protective equipment, which are used even during non-HPAI times,” she said.
Plus, Thompson said, there is increased surveillance and better reporting “and more communicating and social media reporting of that, and they are helping us know where the wild birds are migrating.”
"I have to give props to producers who have been increasing biosecurity, as well as local, state and federal agencies in communicating a lot more about biosecurity,” Thompson said. “As bad as this current outbreak is, this is us trying to slow this down.”
Fighting fatigue
“Outside this hemisphere, they’ve been fighting it for several years,” said Dustan Clark, extension poultry veterinarian for the Division of Agriculture. “We’re at a lull right now since migration is ceased, but we will fight it through this spring and probably again this fall.”
Clark says he’s seen the effects locally.
“I go to the grocery store and see people look at the eggs and move on,” he said. “Or sometimes, they just don’t find eggs.”
Over the last year, Clark has spoken dozens of times to producers and backyard flock owners and others through meetings and webinars, hammering home the need for biosecurity protocols. He said he would schedule more webinars this spring, when wildfowl start their northward migration.
“Since this virus has been detected in wild waterfowl in every state but Hawaii,” Clark said. “It’s an ongoing concern.”
“We are trying to keep everyone vigilant and hope they don’t get fatigued,” he said. “Once the virus slips in on you, it’s going to be problematic.”
In Arkansas, chicken eggs ranked No. 4 in terms of cash farm receipts at $568 million. Broilers topped the list with at nearly $2.7 billion, according to the latest Arkansas Agriculture Profile.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has a site detailing confirmations of HPAI in flocks and a dashboard for tracking wild bird infections.
To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @AR_Extension. To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk.
