A Major American Egg Farm Just Lost 90% of its Chickens

Glenn Hickman (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

Tracy Alloway (0:18)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:23)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:24)

So Joe, just a few months ago, you will remember, I'm sure, egg prices were a really big deal. And we had all these headlines about eggs costing like $10 a dozen and shortages of eggs at supermarkets or eggs being rationed. And it even became a sort of political touchstone. It featured in the elections. And fast forward to today, and it feels like no one's really talking about egg prices anymore. Egg prices paid to Midwest producers, they've gone from like $8.24 to something like $3.44. So we've seen a really dramatic decline. We're recording this, by the way, on June 3rd, which happens to be National Egg Day.

Joe Weisenthal (1:09)

When you look at the price, you can see why no one's talking about it anymore, right? There are certain charts in the world that we only talk about when they're going up. There's others that we only talk about when they're going down. Prices for things like certain food items, we tend to only talk about on the way up.

Tracy Alloway (1:23)

Yeah. But here's my big question. As far as I can tell, bird flu is still very much with us. So the thing that caused egg prices to spike in the first place. I'm very curious why prices have come down. How much of it is just people who stopped buying eggs because they were so expensive versus how much of it is maybe the poultry supply got built back up. I'm happy to say we have the perfect guest to discuss all of this. Although the context in which we're talking is actually very sad. We're going to be speaking with Glenn Hickman. He is the president of Hickman's Egg Ranch in Arizona, one of the largest egg producers in the US. You might remember Glenn from our special three-part series, Beak Capitalism, in which we talked about soaring egg prices and avian flu. And unfortunately, there's been a pretty dramatic development for the egg ranch since then, and they have just lost 95% of their chickens to the flu.

Joe Weisenthal (2:23)

Yeah, I mean, it's an absolutely staggering number. One thing before we get into the conversation that I think is really striking is that you mentioned that prices have come down by basically any measure. And I'm looking at that Midwest delivery number that's gone from over 800 to 344 I mean, compared to years before it, I mean, that was below 100 for a long time. So even though prices have come down from that recent spike, eggs are just, they're very expensive these days. And so there's clearly this like persistent issue and something has changed. Maybe it's bird flu, something else that continues to put sustained upward price on eggs.

Tracy Alloway (3:00)

Yeah, so we need to talk about all of this. So Glenn, welcome back to the show. I wish it were under better circumstances.

Glenn Hickman (3:08)

Well, thank you for having me.

Tracy Alloway (3:09)

So why don't you go ahead and tell us what exactly is going on? Like, what's the situation over at the Egg Ranch?

Glenn Hickman (3:15)

Sure. We have four laying farms here in the state of Arizona. Our farm down south in the city of Maricopa got sick with bird flu in November. And then it was when we tried to refill the farm in January, it got re-infected again. So that farm is still just barely populated. They've got 340,000 chickens down there. But two weeks ago on Friday, our biggest farm in Tonopah, Arizona got sick with bird flu. And subsequent to that, our two other farms in Arlington, Arizona have gotten bird flu. And virtually all of our replacement pullets have gotten bird flu. So right now today, we've got a total infection of about 6 million birds that were in the process of depopulating.

Joe Weisenthal (4:03)

Bird flu comes and goes from time to time in the US. Can you talk a little bit about this current, what seems to be a sustained wave? And of course, the first time we talked to you, I think was either in late 2022 or late 2022 And then that went away and then it came back. Do you have an explanation of what is going on big picture that this is a sustained, persistent problem in bird health?

Glenn Hickman (4:26)

Sure. When this round of bird flu started on the East Coast in February 2022, it was still thought to be a seasonal challenge that was carried by migratory waterfowl. Now, I wouldn't say that it's gone away and came back. I'd say it's more ebbed a little bit, Joe, that we've never ever since those first flocks got sick in 2022, we have not been able to fully rebuild our nation's laying flock before the next wave of bird flu starts. So right now, what we know to be true is it's endemic in several environments. We know that we've had wildlife services out trapping sparrows and pigeons and vermin and ground squirrels, those kind of things, and it's all testing positive for bird flu. So it's now endemic in our environment, and it's something that, you know, the pressure to get inside the barns where the chickens are is the 24-7, 365 pressure.