LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Some farms throughout the country are stepping up mitigation efforts to try and keep the bird flu from spreading.
Since H5N1 was first detected in poultry in 2022, outbreaks have led to the loss of nearly 150 million birds across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Part of the concern is that highly pathogenic influenza is very easily transmitted from wild bird populations into domestic poultry,” Tracy Shane, a livestock specialist with UNR said.
The price of eggs and eventually the price are of chicken are expected to increase due to the shortage. Shane says we are likely to see continued impacts on egg prices until later this year. That’s because it generally takes around six months for a chicken to start laying eggs.
“So we are going to have a little lag in the market waiting for farms to be able to increase capacity to what they have been in the past,” she said.
There are no commercial egg producers in Nevada, but the bird flu has been detected in three herds of dairy cattle and some birds around the state.
The health risk for humans is low. 67 people contracted bird flu in 2024, resulting in one death, and there hasn’t been any person-to-person spread, according to the CDC.
“Everyone within the agriculture industry is trying to increase their biosecurity measures and really do everything they can do to try reduce our human causal factors for moving virus around, cleaning boots, washing hands,” Shane added.
To help address the shortage, the Nevada Department of Agriculture is working with state lawmakers to allow the sale of non-cage free eggs. The state banned the sale of eggs from cages hens in 2021.
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