Bird flu wiped out tens of millions of egg-laying hens across the United States, creating the worst disruption to the country’s egg supply in modern history. More than 20 million laying hens died in a single quarter alone, and the ripple effects have shown up as empty shelves, buying limits, and prices that have more than doubled in some regions. Here’s what drove the shortage and where things stand now.
Bird Flu Devastated the Laying Flock
Highly pathogenic avian influenza, or H5N1, has been circulating in U.S. poultry since early 2022, but the damage accelerated dramatically. USDA data shows that a single recent quarter saw more than 20 million egg-laying chickens killed by the virus, the worst toll on the country’s egg supply since the outbreak began. When the virus is detected at a commercial egg farm, the entire flock is culled to prevent further spread. That can mean hundreds of thousands of birds eliminated from a single facility overnight.
The math is straightforward but brutal. The U.S. typically produces around 7.7 to 8 billion dozen eggs per year. USDA projections for 2025 put table egg production at just 7.39 billion dozen, a 4.5 percent drop from 2024. That percentage sounds modest, but in a market where supply and demand are tightly balanced, even a small shortfall creates outsized price spikes.
Why Farms Can’t Bounce Back Quickly
Replacing millions of hens isn’t like restocking a warehouse. After an outbreak, USDA requires farms to thoroughly clean and disinfect every surface, then keep the facility completely empty for at least 14 days while environmental samples are tested to confirm the virus is gone. Only then can new chicks be brought in.
Those chicks don’t start producing eggs immediately. A young hen takes roughly 18 to 20 weeks to reach laying age. So from the day a farm is depopulated, the realistic timeline to get eggs flowing again is somewhere around five to six months at minimum. Multiply that across dozens of large commercial operations hit in rapid succession, and you get a supply gap that lingers for the better part of a year.
Prices Spiked, Then Stayed High
The average price for a dozen large Grade A eggs hit $4.82 in January 2023 during the first major wave of bird flu losses. Prices eventually cooled as flocks were rebuilt, dropping to about $2.58 by January 2026. But that “lower” price is still well above the sub-$2 range that Americans were accustomed to before the outbreak cycle began.
Regional differences have made things even more uneven. In some markets, a dozen eggs has topped $6 or more. California faces an additional pricing layer: Proposition 12, which took effect in 2022 and requires cage-free housing for all egg-laying hens sold in the state. Research from Purdue University found that California consumers pay an extra $0.25 to $0.73 per dozen because of the regulation, adding up to an estimated $223 million to $664 million in annual costs passed on to shoppers statewide. That premium sits on top of the bird flu-driven inflation.
Record Profits for Egg Companies
While consumers have absorbed higher prices, the country’s largest egg producers have posted extraordinary earnings. Cal-Maine Foods, the biggest shell egg company in the U.S., reported $1.2 billion in net income for its 2025 fiscal year, up from $278 million the year before. Its quarterly net income tripled year over year, reaching $342.5 million. The company’s average selling price per dozen rose from $2.13 to $3.31.
Cal-Maine attributed the price increases to “reduced supply of shell eggs across the industry due to outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza during a period of high demand.” That explanation is technically accurate: when supply drops and demand stays constant, prices rise. But the scale of the profit growth, with net sales nearly doubling from $2.3 billion to $4.3 billion in a single year, has fueled public frustration and accusations of price gouging. The egg industry maintains that prices reflect market conditions rather than coordinated markups.
What the USDA Expects Next
The outlook is cautiously improving. USDA projects table egg production will rebound to about 7.95 billion dozen in 2026, which would nearly restore output to pre-crisis levels. Wholesale prices are forecast to average around $1.95 per dozen in 2026, down from the $2.15 expected for late 2025. That wholesale drop should eventually translate to lower retail prices, though grocery store pricing tends to lag behind by weeks or months.
The catch is that bird flu hasn’t gone away. The virus continues to circulate in wild bird populations, and new outbreaks at commercial farms could erase production gains quickly. The USDA’s forecasts assume no major new waves of infection. If another large cluster of farms is hit, the cycle of culling, cleaning, and repopulating starts over, and prices climb again.
Shifting Consumer Habits
Sustained high prices have pushed some shoppers toward alternatives. The plant-based egg market saw growing demand through 2024, with faster shelf turnover and new product launches across the category. Liquid egg substitutes made from mung beans or chickpeas have gained grocery store shelf space that would have been hard to imagine a few years ago. Whether that shift sticks once conventional egg prices stabilize remains an open question, but the shortage has given plant-based brands a window of visibility they hadn’t previously had.
Other consumers have simply cut back. Bakers have substituted applesauce or flaxseed in recipes. Restaurants have reduced egg-heavy menu items or added surcharges. The shortage has, in a practical sense, reminded people how deeply eggs are woven into the food system, from breakfast plates to the binding agents in processed foods, and how vulnerable that system is to a single persistent virus.