Some grocery stores in various parts of the U.S. are putting signs up on empty shelves explaining they may be out of eggs because of an egg shortage. At the same time, egg prices have climbed to “new record highs daily,” according to Axios.
Back in 2023, VERIFY reported that egg prices were spiking at that time because of the impacts of bird flu and lingering inflation. While egg prices soon dropped, they’ve since climbed again to soar past those previous highs.
People on social media have been talking about an alleged egg shortage and coinciding price hike. They’ve claimed the reason for the egg issues is bird flu.
THE QUESTION
Is there an egg shortage due to bird flu?
THE SOURCES
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
- North Carolina State College of Veterinary Medicine
- UC Davis Magazine
THE ANSWER
Yes, there is an egg shortage due to bird flu.
WHAT WE FOUND
Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have confirmed there is an egg shortage and linked it to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which has spread between chicken flocks across the country since first appearing in the U.S. in February 2022.
“Supply remains the greatest challenge in the marketplace as HPAI continues to impact commercial table egg layer flocks into the new year,” the USDA said in its weekly egg market overview on Jan. 17, 2025. “Consumer demand has been consistent into the new year despite record high prices and temporary shortages of some shell egg types in many retail markets as eggs remain a value protein even at current price levels.”
The Jan. 17 weekly egg market overview reported the national average price of a dozen eggs is $5.87, an increase of more than a dollar from the week before.
Bird flu outbreaks led to the loss of 13.2 million egg-laying chickens in December 2024, according to the USDA’s weekly overview. Those losses, which occurred during the annual period of peak holiday egg demand, resulted in record-high prices “as producers struggled to provide a consistent supply to consumers.”
Monthly USDA data show that the total number of egg-laying chickens and total egg production dropped between December 2023 and December 2024. And since 2021, the year before bird flu spread to U.S. poultry, annual U.S. egg production has dropped by about 4 billion.
Bird flu spreads very quickly between birds in a chicken flock, even before the birds start showing symptoms, North Carolina State College of Veterinary Medicine says. Flu viruses do not grow in dead animals, so the standard practice is to kill off the entire affected flock, including its healthy birds, UC Davis Magazine says. The USDA says this is to prevent the spread of the disease to additional flocks.
This means egg producers don’t just lose birds that catch the bird flu. They lose entire flocks, and then have to order new baby birds that will take 20 weeks before they can start producing eggs, according to NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
In 2024, eggs saw the highest percent increase of any product on the Consumer Price Index, which is a measure of inflation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The Consumer Price Index of eggs increased by 36.8% in 2024, while the CPI for all items increased by only 2.9% in that time.
According to the BLS, the last time the average price of a carton of eggs in the U.S. was under $2 was January 2022, the month prior to the current bird flu epidemic.