SALT LAKE CITY — Eggs continue to be hard for Utahns to find and afford, so many more are using social media to search for reputable egg dealers.
“I've had quite a few people on Facebook reach out, and ask if I have anything extra," says Kath Larkin of Larkin Farm in Salt Lake City.
Larkin explains a lot more of her family and friends have also started coming by, looking for the fruits of her hens' labor.
As a backyard chicken farmer, Larkin admits that she’s struggling to keep up with demand, too, because hens don’t lay enough eggs during the winter since sunlight is lacking and temperatures are cooler.
Out of the 30 hens she owns, Larkin says they may yield a dozen eggs per day during this time of year.
Larkin says she will continue to give away the eggs she has until they become more accessible statewide and prices start to drop.
However, improvements don’t appear to be coming soon, according to Bailey Woolstenhulme, spokesperson for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.
According to her, as of January 11, egg inventories were down 23 percent nationwide compared to the previous year.
She explained egg farms are still trying to recover from last year’s effects of avian influenza (flu), which is the primary contributor to the nationwide egg shortage and price hikes. She also says inflation and higher demand for eggs around the holidays could be factors, too.
Woolstenhulme states that the goal right now, on a state and federal level, is getting farms operating at full capacity once again.
She said there’s no definitive timeline on when the egg market will be back to normal.
“It's a very lengthy process," Woolstenhulm said. "They have to go through an extensive decontamination process before they're allowed to have birds back on those farms.”
She added that no new cases of avian flu have been reported in Utah since November, but that could change by spring.
That’s when birds start migrating and new cases could emerge once again, but it’s too early to determine if that’ll happen.
