If it seems like everything's more expensive in California, there's a reason for that
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and if it's a dozen nice big fat brown eggs you want, you'll need a dozen dollars at many stores in California, if you can even find any eggs.
In Missouri, you can whip up as many over-easyor scrambled eggs as you want for about $4.24, thanks to all the Midwestern chicken farmers who work their hens hard and ship their products to nearby cities.
Besides raising prices, many supermarkets have limited purchases to just a few dozen. Meanwhile, egg experts caution against hoarding. Eggs keep well but they don't last forever and can lose taste and texture in just a few weeks. Four to five weeks is the maximum recommend refrigerated storage time.
Nationwide, the average price of a dozen eggs hit $4.95 in January, nearly twice the price of a year ago. You can blame bird flu, which has caused egg ranchers to cull their herds in hopes of preventing the outbreak from spreading.
It takes time to find and train successors to the hens who've been sacrificed to save others, assuming the outbreak is contained sometime soon. It takes several months for a fledgling hen to mature enough to get the knack of daily egg-laying.
Some critics say California makes matter worse by requiring that laying hens have access to the great outdoorsas a humane measure. Others say it's more a matter of demographics and geography; the state is heavily populated and far from other states so it relies largelyon its own flocks of chickens rather than importing eggs from alien climes.
It's similar to the price of gas and other commodities, which tend to be higher in the West at least partly because of transportation costs.
Growing your own
Many of those who just can't face the day without a smiling yolk on their plate are starting to think about raising a few hens in their backyard.
That's fine but, sadly, many backyards are so polluted that home-grown eggs may carry more toxins than you'd find in commercially available eggs. There's also the little matter of predators that like eggs and absolutelylove hens.
There's also the problem of salmonella and other infectious parasites. They can spread just as easily and quickly, if not more so, in backyard flocks as in commercial hatcheries.
Posted: 2025-02-18 01:04:30
