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.