
The recent bird flu outbreak is not only running up the price of eggs but it's led to a shortage across California.
Bill Mattis with the California Poultry Federation says up to 7 million chickens had to be killed due to the outbreak, the most he has seen related to bird flu in a long time.
Now, Mattis says, farmers are tasked with working to repopulate.
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"The critical issue for us is once you have to depopulate chickens, the barns have to be disinfected and tested and found free of any kind of infection or bird flu inside," Mattis said.
To get production back up to speed could take a while. Mattis said cleaning takes at least one month, and add two or three months for the birds to reach egg-producing maturity. "Now, we haven't lost every egg in California, but we have been hit pretty hard," Mattis cautions.
The State Agriculture Department says 2/3 of egg-laying hens in California were lost, leading to the shortage of eggs on store shelves and their high costs now.
Mattis does expect more eggs to be in stores by February, but the prices might take longer to come down.
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