With high egg prices in stores, bird flu drives more people to Middle Georgia’s small farms

Brandon Hayes, owner of Grace Farms of Middle Georgia in Fort Valley, never thought he’d see people wanting eggs this badly.

His farm is small, relying on a pen of about 30 to 50 chickens to supply eggs each week. While he’s always had a small but loyal customer base, the last several months he’s noticed a sudden influx of business as more and more people flock to local farms over bird flu concerns.

“We typically keep about 20 or 30 dozen (eggs) in stock, and in the past week all of those have been sold,” Hayes said. “We’ve actually had to tell people no.”

Cheryl Zuckerschwerdt, owner of Not Forgotten Farmstead near Lizella, has had a similar experience.

She owns a small farm selling poultry and egg products, and makes weekly rounds in her Honda Fit delivering eggs to customers across the state. Since bird flu first started making national headlines last year — and the virus created hangups in the wider poultry and egg industry — she’s fielded a rise in new orders.

“A lot of people want to come and get eggs from us because they’re short on them at the stores,” Zuckerschwerdt said.

As consumers grow more concerned over bird flu, and eggs become increasingly scarce at the grocery store, small farms in Middle Georgia are getting a boost as people turn to them for poultry and egg products. Farmers and experts said small, local farms offer a safer option for eggs, but may still face supply chain challenges as state and national agencies work to contain bird flu.

Challenges for Georgia’s small farms

While highly pathogenic avian influenza in chickens, also known as bird flu, isn’t a new phenomenon, the latest outbreak has made a particular splash for farmers and consumers alike.

Bird flu is endemic, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meaning it comes and goes among bird populations. The disease is usually managed without major threats or impacts on egg and poultry producers, but last year bird flu was found in dairy cows for the first time at farms in Texas and Kansas. The CDC also reported a small number of cases of humans contracting bird flu from infected cows.

The news pushed the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state agriculture agencies, including the Georgia Department of Agriculture, to take a more aggressive approach to containing bird flu, Hayes and Zuckerschwerdt said.

When bird flu was found at a large commercial farm in northeast Georgia in mid-January, GDA suspended all poultry exhibitions, shows, swaps, meets and sales in the state. The farm where the case was found was also made to euthanize tens of thousands of chickens that may have come into contact with the disease.

Zuckerschwerdt said the farms most at-risk for bird flu are large-scale factory farms with large poultry houses that hold thousands of chickens in a small area. Small-scale, free range farms, which have far fewer chickens and allow the chickens more space, are less likely to see outbreaks.

“When they’re shoulder-to-shoulder, neck-to-neck, and there’s not a lot of space or air, disease is inevitable,” Zuckerschwerdt said.

Hayes said that while small farms are unlikely to develop bird flu, tightened protocols and fear of the disease have still created issues. Farms usually purchase chicks during the winter and spend the spring raising them. That way, they will be grown by summer to lay eggs and slaughter for meat.

When Georgia shuttered all poultry sales in January, it threw a wrench into Georgia poultry farmers’ plans and put increased pressure on neighboring markets. Hayes usually orders chicks from a farm in Alabama, but when sales in Georgia were halted, his order was delayed after the supplier was suddenly inundated with orders from Georgia farmers.

“That’s the one thing that probably affects the small scale farmer negatively right now, not having access to the chicks because of the inventory shortage,” Hayes said.

GDA reopened poultry auctions and sales in Georgia on Monday, but Hayes said farmers can still be impacted if neighboring states close their auctions and sales, sending farmers to Georgia in search of chickens.

A bright side for small Georgia farms

Despite the challenges faced by the egg and poultry industry as a whole, Hayes and Zuckerschwerdt said bird flu has presented an opportunity for small-scale farmers to thrive.

Zuckerschwerdt said she has seen people who’ve bought eggs from the grocery store their entire lives suddenly coming to her for local eggs. She enjoys seeing their reactions when they try her farm’s eggs for the first time.

“After they eat the eggs, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s so good, I want more,’” Zuckerschwerdt said. “They see the quality changes and the differences.”

She said she has also noticed more people are asking questions about how she raises chickens and where their food comes from. Even customers who have bought eggs from her with little questions for years are suddenly asking to tour her farm, where about 400 egg-laying chickens roam in a field of small, grassy pens.

“They’re emailing questions about, ‘How’s your farm with bird flu? How do you handle your chickens?’” Zuckerschwerdt said. “Lots of important questions, people are intelligent and they want to know.”

Hayes said he’s seen a similar trend. People are coming to him for fresh eggs, but are also becoming more interested in understanding how food is produced and accessing fresh, healthy food. He even had a bakery reach out to him about providing them with 400 eggs a week for their baked goods.

Hayes had to turn the order down due to his operation not being large enough to accommodate such a request, but was happy to see that even businesses are becoming more interested in supporting local farms.

While bird flu comes with its challenges, both farmers expressed confidence in the ability of their farms to pull through, and are excited to see as more people discover small farms right in their backyard.

“People are nervous, but I don’t want them to be nervous because we’re not going to lose eggs,” Zuckerschwerdt said. “It’s just the market got hit pretty hard, but the market that didn’t get hit is the small farms.”