Family-sized egg operations create resiliency, and the rewards can outweigh the risks.
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Family-sized egg operations create resiliency, and the rewards can outweigh the risks.
February 18, 2025
Photo credit: Jason Mark
February 19, 2025 Update: Egg prices may be impacted for reasons beyond the scarcity of laying hens due to bird flu. Farm Action, a farmer-led advocacy group, has written to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, requesting an investigation into “potential monopolization and anticompetitive coordination” by the egg industry. “While avian flu has been cited as the primary driver of skyrocketing egg prices, its actual impact on production has been minimal,” the group wrote. “Instead, dominant egg producers . . . have leveraged the crisis to raise prices, amass record profits, and consolidate market power.”
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The end-of-day chitchat among the parents at my kid’s school tends to revolve around the usual pleasantries: soccer schedules, the weather, the latest snow report from Mt. Baker, our local ski resort. On a recent afternoon, however, the talk among the moms and dads as we kept half an eye on a hotly contested game of four-square swerved to a somewhat unusual topic—eggs.
Where was the best place to find them? Which brands were available? Were any stores completely out? Parents rattled off reports of what they had seen at various places, from the big box outlets to the local food co-op, from high-end Whole Foods to discounters like Grocery Outlet and WinCo. “And,” someone sighed, “Can you believe the prices?” I listened and nodded, secure in the knowledge that I had six fresh eggs, straight from the backyard, on my kitchen counter.
“When a few chickens get sick in a facility that has millions of other chickens, the whole flock gets wiped out. As a nation, we have too many eggs in one industrialized basket.”
Eggs are suddenly a conversation starter as the latest wave of highly pathogenic avian flu clobbers U.S. poultry farmers in the worst outbreak of the virus since 2022. In December, some 13.2 million laying hens either succumbed to the disease or were culled as a result of the flu, dominated by the H5N1 subtype. In the first six weeks of this year, 23.5 million have already died. Altogether, more than 159 million poultry livestock in the U.S. have died due to the virus over the last three years.
So far, the risks to humans remains low. However, public health experts worry that the Center for Disease Control’s ability to release updates on the virus might be compromised. The agency recently found that the virus may be spreading undetected in cows and in veterinarians who treat them—but that study was omitted from an agency report released this month, after the Trump administration’s pause on federal health-agency communications.
Meanwhile, in a repeat of the 2022 outbreak, the virus has once again led to a sharp price spike and sent restaurants and shoppers scrambling for eggs. Social media is awash with reports of bare grocery-store shelves. Last week, the average price of a dozen eggs hit $4.95 per dozen—an all time-record. The wholesale price restaurants pay is even higher, recently topping $7 a dozen. Waffle House recently announced that it was placing a 50-cent surcharge on every egg it cooks.
The virus’s impacts on the poultry industry—and, to a lesser extent, on dairy production—may well be the biggest interruption to the U.S. food system since the COVID-19 quarantine, which created a rush on vegetable seeds and baby chicks.
Such shocks to the food system are evidence of some of the inherent weaknesses of an industrialized and highly concentrated agriculture sector. Just 20 firms raise more than two-thirds of the roughly 380 million laying hens in America. To some people, such concentration is an asset, proof of the impressive productivity of modern agriculture. But concentration, it turns out, comes with its own risks—especially with a highly pathogenic virus on the loose.
Eggs from backyard hens. (Photo credit: Jason Mark)
When a few chickens get sick in a facility that has millions of other chickens, the whole flock gets wiped out. When that happens again and again, in state after state, prices inevitably shoot upward. Concentration may lead to efficiencies, but it also comes with brittleness. As a nation, we have too many eggs in one industrialized basket.
There are, though, other ways of making an omelet. Even though they are not immune from the ravages of the virus, smaller-scale and pasture-raised poultry operations have, so far, shown themselves to be more resilient against the outbreak, some experts say—even if that’s only because their smaller size is a check against hundreds of thousands of birds dying all at once at a single location.
And there’s another option for maintaining a steady supply of eggs: home-scale chicken flocks.
The eggs on my countertop came courtesy of the five laying hens my family keeps on our suburban Bellingham, Washington homestead. Such abundance affords me a measure of detachment when after-school talk turns to egg prices.
But as the virus spreads, and news comes of egg farmers holding emergency meetings in Washington, D.C. and of backyard birds getting sick too, I’ve begun to wonder whether my own chickens are worth the trouble, and whether keeping them is safe for my family.
Bird flu has been with us for nearly 30 years now. Most people first heard the term “avian flu” back in 1997, when a spillover event in Hong Kong led to six human deaths. Since then, human cases have been exceedingly, thankfully rare. But in the intervening decades the once-novel virus has become widespread among wild fowl. It has jumped to other animals, including domesticated cows and wild marine mammals like seals and sea lions. And it has infected humans, though the risk to the public is minimal, at least for now.
The virus can spread by direct contact, as well as through the air, which makes it highly contagious. Biologists estimate that in recent years millions of wild birds have died from the virus. The disease has been especially hard on waterfowl like geese and ducks, though few bird species have been spared. Bird flu has caused deaths of bald eagles, especially chicks before they fledge. An outbreak among the endangered California condors has set back efforts to recover that species.
“What we do know is that the virus is now endemic in some wild birds, like wild ducks that move through our country,” says Carol Cardona, a professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at University of Minnesota. “We know that is partially why we keep getting these seasonal outbreaks.”
Every year, tens of millions of migratory birds travel from the northern latitudes southward, and they inevitably cross paths with domesticated flocks. During a recent briefing for reporters, Maurice Pitesky, a cooperative extension agent at the University of California, Davis used California as an example.
“During the winter . . . we go from 600,000 resident waterfowl to over 8 million waterfowl. You will see ducks and geese. And we’ve decided to have our poultry and dairy operations overlap with where the wildfowl over-winter. They spatially overlap, and that is where infection can take place.”
After years of repeated bird flu outbreaks, most industrialized poultry operations have implemented sophisticated biosecurity protocols to try to keep their flocks safe. The birds spend the entirety of their lives indoors, quarantined from direct contact with wild fowl. No visitors are allowed on site, and at some facilities staff are even required to shower on the way in and the way out of the barns where the birds live.
So, how is it possible for the virus to get into a high-tech barn? Simple: the birds still need to breathe, which requires a ventilation system of some kind, which allows an entry point for the virus. Phillip Clauer, a professor emeritus of poultry science at Penn State, explains: “In the Midwest, they are working the fields in the fall, and you’ll see dust coming up from the fields, and the geese will land there to glean the extra corn, and they crap in the field. The dust goes aerosol, and that dust travels a long distance. We had one infected layer house in Pennsylvania, and they could tell you exactly what air vent the virus came in from. And then it spread through the whole flock.”
What does that mean for pasture-raised poultry, which spend most of their lives outdoors and therefore are at greater risk of contact with contagious wild birds? Farmers involved in smaller scale and regenerative poultry production insist that pastured birds are less susceptible to the virus, thanks to overall better health and wellbeing.
“In general, birds raised in high-welfare systems with access to pasture and sunlight are healthier and more resilient than birds raised in confinement,” says Tim Holmes, the director of compliance at A Greener World, which oversees the Certified Regenerative and Animal Welfare Approved labels. “In a pasture-based system, the key is having enough space and sunlight for the birds so that the pathogen load does not become too great. The ability [of] birds to forage and express natural behaviors also helps reduce stress, so the bird has a healthier immune system.”
I heard a similar argument when I paid a visit to David Whittaker at Oak Meadows Farm, a pasture-raised poultry and hog operation near where I live in Whatcom County, WA. Whittaker maintains his own biosecurity protocols—he wouldn’t let me enter the barn where about 100 chickens of his breeder flock were clucking around—but his chickens spend most of their lives freely roaming outside, with an epic view of glacier-capped Mount Baker.
Whittaker raises about 6,000 broiler chickens annually on 10 acres, and he has flocks on pasture well into October and November, when tens of thousands of snow geese, trumpeter swans, tundra swans, and ducks of all kinds fly overhead. In the 10 years since he turned his childhood hobby into a commercial operation, he’s never had a bird infected by the virus. “The birds I raise are healthier; they’ve got more resistance to it,” Whittaker says.
David Whittaker and his breeding flock. (Photo credit: Jason Mark)
How come, exactly? “Just because I’m using high-quality feed, I’m not packing 100,000 or more into a building. They are out on pasture, eating grass.”
Clauer—who made a point to tell me that he has worked with both pastured operations and industrial players—was skeptical of the idea that pasture-raised birds might be less susceptible to the virus. “The more birds you have spread all over creation, the more opportunities you have to interface with wild waterfowl.”
He was also leery of the notion that smaller farms could meet the country’s demands for chicken breasts, turkey dinners, and egg scrambles. “You would need so many small flocks that you couldn’t produce enough eggs. You wouldn’t have enough people to collect the eggs.”
But Clauer didn’t dispute that the high concentrations of birds in industrial facilities (the biggest one he knows of is a 4-million-bird operation in Iowa) come with the risk of high mortality numbers, as well as greater chances of the virus mutating. “If you have a lot of animals, a lot more birds can become infected a lot more quickly. The bigger the flock, the bigger the concern.”
I have to wonder if some of the risk-reward calculus between industrial poultry farms and smaller, pasture-raised ones might start to change if—or when—bird flu becomes endemic in domesticated flocks. Especially now that the virus is going back and forth between cattle and birds, containment may no longer be an option. All the biosecurity measures in the world won’t stop geese from crapping in farm fields. It’s like wearing a hazmat suit to keep away the common cold.
If that’s so, then the way to create a more resilient—which is to say, a more efficient—food system would be to have more poultry farms like Whittaker’s. Of course, the economics of small-scale livestock farming are punishingly difficult and it would require a sweeping overhaul of the food system to get more locally raised eggs from pasture to market.
For that reason alone, we’re unlikely to see a flowering of more thousand-bird flocks any time soon. But there is another route to diversifying egg production from healthy, resilient birds: the kind of backyard flock like mine. “Basically, every couple of families [could have] enough hens to supply their friends and family,” Whittaker says. “Even if a small farm goes out, it wouldn’t matter. That would be the ultimate dream—pretty much everybody produc[ing] their own eggs, if they have the space to.”
Far from being a problem, then, backyard birds offer something of a solution. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, this latest avian flu–driven price shock has reignited interest in backyard flocks. Even if the virus were to disappear tomorrow, retail egg prices will be well above normal for another 12 to 18 months. It will take at least that long for commercial breeding flocks to recover. So this may be the good time to invest in a backyard flock.
If you’re serious about joining the estimated 13 percent of U.S. households that keep backyard chickens, here are some things to keep in mind.
“Every couple of families [could have] enough hens to supply their friends and family. Even if a small farm goes out, it wouldn’t matter.”
Given all the news about bird flu, you’re no doubt wondering whether backyard poultry could put you or your household at serious risk. At this point, the answer is no. Most of the 67 human cases of bird flu in the United States have resulted from people catching the virus from dairy cattle, and most of them have been mild cases. The one human fatality from bird flu took place in Louisiana, where a woman apparently contracted it from dead chickens, but according to all reports the person was elderly and in poor health.
The risk is low, but it isn’t zero, and contact with backyard chickens would put you at a higher exposure. There are, though, ways to mitigate the danger. Clauer says one of the most important strategies for keeping your backyard flock—and you—healthy is to keep them away from wild birds. This can be as simple as ensuring that their living space is secured from feathered visitors by, for example, putting a net above the coop and run.
Beyond that, you’d want to follow some basic biosecurity protocols (the USDA and UC Davis have some good cheat sheets). Keep an extra pair of “coop boots” that you use only for going in and out of the poultry enclosure, so you’re not tracking poop into your house. Secure the birds’ food and water to keep out other critters, like rodents, that can carry disease. And always, always wash your hands after collecting eggs and feeding and watering your hens—an instruction so simple that even young children can follow it.
The next big question is: Are you ready to make the commitment of time and attention? Chickens require a level of care not dissimilar to any other animal companion. They need fresh water and food daily, plus regular cleanings of their coop and runs. They also—and this is harder than it sounds—need to be kept safe from predators.
If you’ve only ever cared for a house plant, you may want to think twice. That said, there are plenty of how-to guides to help you learn the basics, from the encyclopedic The Small-Scale Poultry Flock to the more quick and dirty tips in The Essential Urban Farmer. Maurice Pitesky and his colleagues at U.C. Davis also have a useful library of fact sheets.
Next, you need to ensure that it’s legally permissible to keep poultry in your city, town, or county. Most areas allow backyard poultry raising, but you need to be aware of the idiosyncrasies of local ordinances. Some places have strict rules about setbacks from neighbors’ properties, and many others prohibit roosters (too noisy). You can find a useful guide to local poultry rules at backyardchickens.com. Also: Be sure to check in with your neighbors before hatching your plans, to avoid drama.
Finally, ask yourself if it’s financially worth it to you. An off-the-shelf chicken coop can easily cost $300—and well more if you go for a bespoke model. If you’re handy, you can build one yourself, but lumber ain’t cheap, and even a homemade coop will pinch your pocketbook. You’ll also need some waterers, and maybe even a heated model if, like me, you live in a place with icy winters. If you’re rearing day-old chicks (which run anywhere from $5 to $15 per bird or more), you’ll need a heat lamp system and the proper feeders. Keep in mind that if you do purchase day-old chicks this spring, you won’t get your first eggs for about 20 weeks.
In short, there’s no such thing as a free egg. If you’re launching a laying hen setup from scratch, the payoff horizon may be longer than you wish. But if bird flu does become a permanent challenge for the U.S. poultry industry, the investment will eventually be worth it. “That might not be a bad economic equation for the next two years,” Clauer figures.
I’ve kept chickens for a total of six years in two different states, and by now I’ve paid off my initial investments and ongoing feed costs. During the summer, we’re overflowing with eggs, and routinely give away a half dozen here and a dozen there to friends, family, and neighbors. The egg volume does decline in the winter, yet even without artificial light we manage to get one or two eggs a day up here at the 49th parallel.
But I would keep backyard chickens even if it were a break-even proposition. I don’t raise hens simply as a matter of grocery-bill savings. They provide me with a subjective, but very real, sense of abundance and security.
I keep a large home garden, big enough to produce well more than half of my family’s annual fruits and vegetables. But, being a flexitarian, I can’t live on kale alone. And even though I can’t live off kale frittatas alone either, by producing some of my own protein I cultivate a feeling of ecological resilience, knowing that I’m more insulated from the brittleness—and the injustices and the pollution—of industrialized agriculture.
My small flock represents one additional node in the food production network. Imagine many more nodes like that, hundreds of thousands of new backyard flocks, and you might come to see how every home-scale hen helps strengthen the food system.
I’m convinced that even with all the cost and labor and time, such resilience and abundance is worth the price tag—is in fact, priceless.
An earlier edition of this article misspelled the name of Tim Holmes, the director of compliance at A Greener World.
July 30, 2025
From Oklahoma to D.C., a food activist works to ensure that communities can protect their food systems and their future.
Sadly, I currently live in Martinsburg, WV, a place where it is illegal to have backyard chickens (if you can believe it!!) Fortunately, I do have backyard carrots and kale.