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Egg Prices On The Rise

By Nebraska Radio Network

05/30/2015

eggs

(Nebraka Radio Network)-- Consumers in Nebraska are seeing some grocery prices rise as the price of eggs used by food manufacturers has more than tripled in recent weeks due to the avian influenza outbreak in Nebraska and 15 other states. Bird flu has affected more than seven-million egg-laying hens at four major operations in northeast Nebraska.

U-S-D-A poultry economist Alex Melton says food company officials are worried about supply, and that it’s hard to say how high costs will eventually climb, since no one knows when the avian flu outbreaks will stop. Roughly ten-percent of the egg-laying hens in the U-S have been affected by avian flu.

Eggs used in food processing cost 64-cents a dozen back in April, but now the price is over two-25 a dozen due to so many outbreaks of bird flu. Prices have started to taper, but stabilizing costs depend on the egg industry’s ability to replace and sustain the current flock.

Nebraska's poultry industry is worth one-point-one billion dollars a year. Next door in Iowa, the nation's top egg producer, more than 66 outbreaks of bird flu are reported and more than 19-million hens and pullets have been euthanized.

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