Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

no, bird flu can still infect your backyard flock

But the culls are smaller, and so the impact lessened. The problem becomes more distributed.

This is the chief reason why Canada's egg prices have remained sane while the US has exploded. It's not like we don't have bird flu here and we haven't had culls. We just have smaller flocks.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/egg-prices-avian-flu-canada-u...

Still, backyard chickens are a hobby, for if you like chickens. It will always cost more than an egg farm.

Nope, can still catch the flu. Stay home.

Is there any reason I shouldn’t let my half-dozen birds get it and die or survive, see if any develop immunity and work from there?

Ethical reasons should prevent you from intentionally infecting them.

Mostly they can spread it to you and to any other animals around and by the time you’re aware that they’re infected, they’ll be seriously ill. Or shorter; the chances x benefit of them they developing immunity are much lower than the chances x cost of them becoming ill and having the virus mutate in a much worse direction.

Watching your chickens die sucks, my friend. They don't just drop dead overnight. It's often many days of watching them slowly suffer.

Then imagine spreading that misery to all the wild birds you love in your neighbourhood.

I think a lot of that is due to eggs being under government supply management. It is very difficult to get a new egg farm going, and it is very difficult to consolidate egg farms. So we have more smaller farms surviving as a result.

That's definitely a part of it.

There was some move some years ago here in Ontario to push for a small flock exemption to allow for egg & pooultry sales outside the quota system for flocks under 300 bird. And I don't mean roadside sales, but market sales. So there has been some accommodation for smaller market players.

https://sustainontario.com/small-flock-exemptions/

All the quota systems in Ontario have troubles moving farms generation to generation. You pretty much have to inherit a farm as the quota costs are pretty well impossible to surmount in addition to land and equipment costs, as well as working capital for fuel, fertilizer, seed, etc. Dairy has recognized that and there is a certain portion of quota that needs to go to new producers when quota is bought and sold. I don't know if the chicken meat and egg systems do the same.

From what I understand there is no path for the small flock program to get from 300 birds to full up full time. I'm sure 300 birds/year is still hobby farm. Nobody is earning a living on that.

yeah 300 birds only makes sense as a supplement to some other farming you're doing

BC grocery stores shelves are getting bare of eggs, and the pricing is significantly higher that typical.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/egg-shortages-bc-grocery-bir...

Yeah, My concern is more opportunities to pass to people who may not be doing good flock hygiene too. A farm has better resources and training than a backyard flock.

> But the culls are smaller, and so the impact lessened. The problem becomes more distributed.

Presumably the risk of spread of bird flu to humans increases though, due to the increased amount of contact. And then the increased risk of mutation leading to human to human transmission.

Bit wild to me that we don't seem to be taking this very seriously other than "o no my eggs" given we just had a pandemic a few years ago.

Arguably all the awful and crazy politics around COVID-19 has led directly to the scenario of people really not willing to take new pandemics seriously.

I think the way to think about H5N1 at the current time, for the hyper individualist types who don't care about no pandemic, is that it's like ebola. You really, really don't want to get it (~50% mortality) but you have to do quite specific things to put yourself at risk. One of those things is interacting with outdoor birds on a regular basis. Even in the absence of a pandemic it's just good sense not to expose yourself to that for the sake of questionably cheaper eggs.

I'd rather not risk having a bunch of sick animals to deal with to save a couple dollars personally

This is true as long as we don't end up with a mutation that can go from people to people.

I saw this morning that we now have the first cases of rats with H5N1, so... things are going great