With the high price of eggs thanks to a shortage caused by bird flu, you might wonder if the same cause might mean a coming shortage of chicken.
But that logic doesn't follow, according to Betty Lin-Fisher, a consumer reporter for USA Today, who researched and wrote a detailed article pointing out that egg-laying chickens and the kind of chickens we like to roast or slice into casseroles are of two different types.
"Although they are both chickens, there are different species, different types of chickens.
"There are the egg-layers, of course, and their sole purpose is to lay the eggs we consumers consume. Those chickens do not end up as poultry meat.
"And then there are broiler chickens that are raised specifically to be chicken meat, and their lifespans are much shorter and their facilities have about 10,000 broiler chickens at a time at a facility.
"But there can be a million egg-laying hens at a specific property, so if they get hit by bird flu, and if that facility has to destroy those hens, it is a devastating hit there because you can't just go out and get a new hen to start laying eggs tomorrow, it takes time.
But Ms. Lin-Fisher says she learned another important part of the consumer story.
"What then happens [with an egg shortage] and happened to a smaller extent back in 2021, when there was bird flu as well, was that eggs, as a cheap source of protein for people, consumers who can't get eggs will move on to the next cheapest source of protein, which is tuna, chicken, and pork."
That, then, can lead to temporary shortages of one of those three products as consumers change buying habits and grocers have to adjust their supply and stocking to meet the new demand.
