While the bird flu has not reached Martha’s Farm Market, a sixth-generation beef and poultry farm in northern Harford County, the market has raised its egg prices in response to the outbreak, a trend that many local farmers are following.

Julie Yarrington, owner of Martha’s Farm Market in Street, said that the increasing nationwide demand for eggs has impacted her market’s supply and therefore its prices.

“We have not encountered the bird flu at all here, but what happened was, we kept our prices very reasonable and people were coming out to buy eggs who had never been here before. They were pretty much cleaning us out,” she said.

The U.S. Agriculture Department predicts record egg prices could soar more than 40% this year, according to the Associated Press, as the Trump administration offered new details Wednesday about its plan to battle bird flu and ease costs. With an emphasis on farms tightening measures to prevent bird flu’s spread, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the USDA will invest $1 billion on top of the roughly $2 billion it has already spent since the outbreak began in 2022.

The main reason egg prices have climbed — hitting an all-time average high of $4.95 per dozen this month — is that more than 166 million birds have been slaughtered to limit the virus’ spread when cases are found, the Associated Press reported. Most were egg-laying chickens. Since the start of the year, more than 30 million egg layers have been killed, the AP said.

Yarrington noted that most of the market’s customers are from Harford County, coming from as far south as Edgewood, although the farm has customers from Pennsylvania and Towson on occasion. She suspected that customers began driving to her property from even greater distances since egg prices in grocery stores have surpassed record highs. As a result, the Yarringtons found themselves running out of eggs on a daily basis, despite collecting anywhere from three to six dozen per day from their chickens.

The increase in traffic at their farm led the Yarringtons to enforce a limit of two dozen eggs per customer. They also increased their price of a dozen eggs from $4 to $5.50.

“You know how it is when you go to pick up something, you want to get eggs or whatever, and you get there and there’s none there,” Yarrington said. “I just felt really bad for our customers that were driving to get them and couldn’t.”

Dr. Jennifer Trout, a Harford County native, was appointed by Maryland Agriculture Secretary Kevin Atticks in October to oversee animal health as the state veterinarian. Trout said Wednesday that the bird flu outbreak impacted the state in the beginning of January after a die-off of chickens at two commercial poultry farms on the Eastern Shore. Even larger die-offs occurred in Delaware, she said.

Five commercial poultry farms in Maryland are currently affected by bird flu, and a backyard flock in Montgomery County is also affected, according to Trout.

Trout said that there are several biosecurity measures that poultry farmers can take as the USDA works to approve vaccines and make them available. These measures include wearing dedicated footwear and coveralls in hen houses, cleaning up feed spillage on the ground and limiting the number of visitors near poultry facilities.

“You can apply that to backyard poultry as well, right? If you have multiple coops, and if you’re going in and out of them, make sure that there’s foot baths to disinfect your boots,” Trout said.

At Martha’s Farm Market, Yarrington said her family is “pretty strict about biosecurity” and is taking measures to prevent customers from bringing the bird flu to her farm. “That’s probably a low rate that would happen, but I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows,” she said.

Yarrington said many of her hens are also older and are not laying as many eggs as they used to. To solve that issue, her family recently looked into acquiring more pullets, which are typically hens less than 1 year old, but their supplier has told them to expect delays as many other poultry farmers in the region are trying to supplement their flocks with more egg-layers to help meet high demand.

Trout called the demand for eggs “inelastic” on Wednesday, noting that it takes five months for a pullet to start producing eggs and become a hen. She noted that while many farmers in the state are purchasing pullets in the wake of the die-offs, it will take months before egg production rates return to where they were before the outbreak.

“I would like to say that egg prices are going to go back to normal in the next month, but I can’t say that because you don’t know where everybody is in raising the replacement birds for those [egg] layer facilities,” Trout said. She did, however, add that warmer weather slows the spread of avian influenza outbreaks.

Trout encouraged poultry farmers, or even people with backyard coops, to register their flocks with the Maryland Department of Agriculture. Those who register are put on a distribution list and receive alerts about the outbreak and recommended biosecurity practices.

Trout said that those interested in registering must own at least two chickens in order to be eligible for alerts. To register, visit https://mda.maryland.gov/AnimalHealth/pages/poultry-reg-faq.aspx

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