Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

> Family-sized egg operations create resiliency

This would probably create resiliency for egg supply, but given that a source of bird flu is wild birds and transfer to and from humans would increase mutations wouldn't it likely increase probability of more bird flu and more human cases?

It would likely much increase salmonella infections. Which currently appears as a far nastier problem.

How's that? I know American eggs get cleaned and bleached, but that doesn't happen in Europe yet salmonella is not a huge issue.

(cleaning eggs also removes some of its natural barriers, making it mandatory to refrigerate them to keep them edible)

Industrial eggs are tightly controlled. Homemade eggs are far more susceptible to infection. AFAIK, scrubbing eggs like in the US is generally a bad idea, and results in the need to refrigerate them.

Chickens are vaccinated in Europe.

This doesn’t explain the lack of salmonella from eggs in Europe

lack of bleaching force owners to keep high standard (hygiene and vaccinations)

If you wash your eggs before using them, you will never get salmonella.

But you will get rotten eggs easily.

In thirty years in Europe, I’ve had a single incidence of salmonella infection when I handled egg shells badly while doing a Carbonara (which requires raw eggs to be spread right over the plate). This really, really isn’t a problem if you follow minimal hygiene when cooking (don’t touch food after touching shells without washing your hands in between.

Huh ? Yes, it does. Same reason as in the US: industrial eggs are tightly controlled.

> Homemade eggs are far more susceptible to infection

Source? I buy small-farm eggs all the time. The industrial ones need sanitisation because of the literally shit condition the birds are kept in.