AFBF Chicken Egg Production Down In 2024

Earlier this week, the USDA released its annual Chicken and Eggs Summary, which has the latest numbers of egg layers, egg production, and the total U.S. chicken inventory as of December 1st, 2024.

“According to this report, layers in 2024 were estimated at an average of 375 million. Now this is down about two percent from last year," said Bernt Nelson, economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation.  "Our egg production from layers total 109 billion eggs, down one percent. Lastly, let's talk about the overall chicken inventory. Now this came in at 514 million birds, down about two percent from last year.”

While USDA expects a modest increase in the price of broiler chickens, egg prices have taken a much more significant jump.

“Eggs have come up dramatically over the last couple of months," Nelson said.  "The average New York wholesale price for large eggs for the last week in January was $7.46 a dozen, more than 150 percent of where we were at, at $2.94, last year. The annual average price projection by USDA for eggs is now $4.44 a dozen.”

The biggest factor behind the changes is highly pathogenic avian influenza.  However, the current report doesn’t include the birds lost so far in 2025, which means the report doesn’t reflect what consumers are currently seeing at the grocery store.

“The U.S. lost about 43 million birds in January and February, after this report," Nelson continued.  "Now this is about 25 percent or a quarter of all the birds affected since the outbreak began 2022, and this is not yet captured in this report.”

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