US consumers snapping up chicks to beat egg price spike

Hatcheries scramble to keep up with demand for chicks that will grow into egg-laying chickens

NEW YORK - Which shortage came first: the chicks or the eggs? Spooked by a huge spike in egg prices, some consumers in the United States are taking steps to secure their own future supply.

Demand for chicks that will grow into egg-laying chickens - which jumped at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 - is rapid again as the 2023 selling season starts, leaving hatcheries scrambling to keep up.

"Everybody wants the heavy layers," said Ms Ginger Stevenson, director of marketing at Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa. Her company has been running short on some breeds of especially prolific egg producers, partly as families try to hedge their bets against skyrocketing prices and constrained egg availability.

"When we sell out, it's not like: Well, we can make another chicken," she said.

Murray McMurray's experience is not unique. Hatcheries around the country are reporting that demand is surprisingly robust in 2023. Many attribute the spike to high grocery prices, and particularly to rapid inflation for eggs, which in December cost 60 per cent more than a year earlier.

"We're already sold out on a lot of breeds most breeds until the summer," said Ms Meghan Howard, who runs sales and marketing for Meyer Hatchery in northeast Ohio. "It's those egg prices.

People are really concerned about food security." Google search interest in "raising chickens" has jumped markedly from a year ago. The shift is part of a broader phenomenon: A small but rapidly growing slice of the US population has become interested in growing and raising food at home, a trend that was nascent before the pandemic and has been invigorated by the shortages it spurred.