21 Mar 2006
Preparing for the Avian Flu Threat in the U.S.

If they could've designed a disease to put me out of business this would be it:

He added that while thousands of free-roaming and backyard chickens were infected in Thailand in 2004, none of the country's large-scale, commercial chicken flocks in enclosed facilities were hit.

Mr. Lobb said chickens sold as free-range or organic, meaning they are allowed access to the outdoors, may be more susceptible to avian flu transmission, but this group represents less than 1 percent of the chicken production.

I probably shan't be running meat birds this year anyway: the USDA certified processing plant that we used was purchased by a large conglomerate and shut down. (I suspect this was to keep free range birds from backyard flocks from getting the processing they need to be legally sold to retailers, but who knows?) But if bird flu gets anywhere near me, you can bet the state will cull my laying flock. Completely. Without any sign of disease in them.

What does this mean? Well, I sell a dozen eggs for $2.50. That means each egg is roughly worth $0.21. Each hen lays (roughly speaking) 1 egg per day - which means that each hen produces $76.65 in sales each year. I have 250 laying hens. A hen's primary production will last two year - all of my girls (except Miss Lucky - there's a tale for another day) have just started laying this past winter. When they're done laying I slaughter and sell the birds as stewing hens for $2.50/lb., or about $7.50 per bird.

I have 250 hens.

That makes the total value (over the next two years) of my current flock $40,200.

Of course, if I locked the girls up in the barn, and got real lucky so that they miss a mandatory cull, I could probably preserve them. But that would increase my feed costs dramatically: I spend less than $100/mo. in the winter on chicken feed right now, and nothing in the summer months. Locking them down would probably quadruple that, not to mention the additional bedding and labor to keep the hen house clean. Additionally, I could no longer sell "free range" eggs: so the retail price would have to come down (probably to about $1.89/doz. - they're still brown eggs and "farm fresh") or I'd end up with a bunch of eggs on my back porch.

It's a Catch-22. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Do you still wonder why I'm petrified of bird flu?

Concerned that people will eat less chicken if avian flu reaches the U.S., poultry producers are taking precautions to protect their product.

(link) [New York Times]

00:00 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link