OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Highly pathogenic avian influenza, better known as bird flu, is making its way across the commercial poultry flocks of the Midwest, forcing the destruction of several millions of chickens and turkeys in Iowa alone.
This latest bird flu outbreak is causing egg prices to climb, which is unfortunate timing with Easter around the corner. Coupled with inflation and an ongoing supply chain crisis, Pastured Poultry farmer Quentin Carritt of Paradigm Pastures in Crescent calls this "the perfect storm."
"I am very concerned about it, mainly because we raise our chickens outdoors," Carritt said.
Carritt's chickens are outdoors 90% of the time. Since the bird flu is spread by wild birds, there's always risk that if it hits his farm, he could run completely out of chickens.
"We do have plans for the summer, where we typically run our meat birds and our egg layers together in the same flock. However, we're gonna split them on different sides of the farm, just in an attempt to keep — if there's any cross-contamination — to keep from spreading on the whole flock," Carritt said.
There's one thing Carritt refuses to do.
"I don't know of any majors I can do, I refuse to keep them locked up. We want them outdoors in the sunlight," Carritt said.
Carritt is also facing rising costs in fuel and feed.
"Our feed costs have gone up about 25%. Just fuel, I have to drive to pick up feed, we have to drive to make deliveries to customers. We have to — when we process chickens — we have to drive to get the chickens processed, so the average fuel costs is affecting us as well," Carritt said.
The increasing costs in operations is leading him to raise his egg prices 50 cents per dozen.
"We probably should have went a little bit higher. I feel like I need to share the burden with my customers," Carritt said.
Deviled Egg Co. is a restaurant in Omaha whose menu relies almost entirely on eggs, and the costs have been tremendous on owner Raechel Van Buskirk.
"100% increases on poultry, egg prices; I have seen as high as 300 to 400% from what we were seeing previously," Buskirk said.
Buskirk is inspired to "get creative" with rising costs, using shrimp or other forms of protein besides poultry.
Still, Carritt promises we'll see something unprecedented.
"With inflation and everything else going on in conjunction with avian flu, we're going to see something we've never seen before, in terms of egg prices, in terms of chicken prices and availability," Carritt said.
When it comes to Easter, Carritt actually suggests saving your eggs for food. Families might want to reconsider painting their eggs for Easter as it can save you from "breaking the bank."
SEE MORE: Egg-perience Deviled Egg Co.'s namesake egg-clusive menu
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