A Major American Egg Farm Just Lost 90% of its Chickens
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Egg prices have come down a lot since their recent record and bird flu has largely faded from the headlines. But the epidemic is still raging and, per one farmer, risks becoming endemic in the US. Glenn Hickman is president of Hickman's Egg Ranch in Arizona, one of the largest egg producers in the US. You might remember him from our series last year, Beak Capitalism, in which we explored some of the thorniest issues facing the US economy through the medium of chickens. Well, news from the Hickman farm since then hasn't been good. A bird flu outbreak has led to the destruction of 90% of Glenn's chicken stock. We talk about the impact on Glenn's business, egg prices, and why the US isn't vaccinating its chickens.
Check out Beak Capitalism
Read more: To Understand America’s Egg Crisis, Look to China’s Pork
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Transcript
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| 0:10.0 | How do you protect against inflation? |
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| 1:02.8 | Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts Radio News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Oddlots podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. |
| 1:18.4 | And I'm Joe Wisenthall. |
| 1:19.7 | So, Joe, just a few months ago, you will remember, I'm sure, egg prices were a really big deal. |
| 1:27.2 | And we had all these headlines about |
| 1:29.3 | eggs costing like $10 a dozen and shortages of eggs at supermarkets or eggs being rationed. |
| 1:37.1 | And it even became a sort of political touchstone. It featured in the elections. And fast forward |
| 1:44.0 | to today, and it feels like no one's |
| 1:46.3 | really talking about egg prices anymore. Egg prices paid to meet West producers. They've gone |
| 1:51.9 | from like $8.24 to something like $3.44. So we've seen a really dramatic decline. We're recording |
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