Australia has lost more than 10 per cent of its laying hens to bird flu in the last year and there are fears egg shortages will continue as the sector tries to bounce back.
Authorities have culled 2.4 million birds to try and control two large avian influenza outbreaks that have resulted in intermittent but ongoing egg shortages.
So far Australia has managed to avoid the worst strain of bird flu, which is ravaging chicken flocks and killing other animals around the world.
The United States is experiencing one of its worst-ever avian influenza outbreaks.
Cattle in the US are bearing the brunt of the outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu strain, which spread to dairy cows in 2024 and continues to spread through herds.
Scientists collect samples from a dead porpoise in Brazil. (Reuters/Diego Vara)
Why so many outbreaks?
Since 2020 avian influenza has been spreading across the globe and outbreaks are becoming more frequent.
The H5N1 strain, which has been circulating for about 30 years, poses the greatest risk to animal and human health.
The prevalence of H5N1 has created a panzootic – an animal pandemic – that the US is at the epicentre of.
Domestic cats, sea life and humans have been infected.
In the US, tens of millions of birds have been culled, almost 1,000 dairy herds in 17 states have been affected and at least 70 people have been infected.
Three people have died of the H5N1 strain recent — one in the United States and two in Cambodia.
The latest reported death was that of a two-year-old boy.
Millions of wild birds have perished from the disease since 2020. (Reuters/Ronen Zvulun)
Health and animal specialists have criticised bird flu management at the state and federal levels in the US, where Donald Trump’s government is slashing budgets and staff.
Minnesota has declared a state of emergency as multiple diseases hit poultry farms.
The United Kingdom put its chickens into lockdown as H5N1 tore through birdlife at the same time as COVID-19 spread throughout the world.
There was a lull in the H5 outbreak in the UK, but it recently re-emerged when a person became infected after contact with sick poultry at a farm in the West Midlands.
More than 100 Agriculture Victoria staff are working to contain an outbreak at Euroa. (ABC Shepparton: Callum Marshall)
Mass culling in Australia
Australia remains one of the last places free of the H5N1 strain.
But H7 strains have led to the deaths of about 10 per cent of Australia’s laying hens since May last year.
H7N3 was found at seven farms in Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT last year.
The H7N9 sub-type, which is another strain of global concern due to its high mortality rate, was found at one farm in Victoria during this outbreak.
More than one million birds were killed in that state alone.
In total Australian authorities culled 1.67 million egg laying hens at those farms in 2024.
Another 135,846 birds died of the disease, taking the tally of dead poultry to 1.805 million.
Days after Australia’s 2024 bird flu outbreak was officially declared over, H7N8 was detected at a farm in northern Victoria on February 8.
Since then the disease has been detected on three more properties owned by the same company, which will lead to the culling of about 600,000 birds.
What about the price of eggs?
Free range egg prices in Australia have increased by 25 per cent since 2010.
Coles, Woolworths and Aldi have pledged to phase out or ban battery cages from their supply chains by this year.
A Woolworths spokesperson said demand for caged eggs had continued to fall from 70 per cent of all eggs sold in Woolworths in 2009, to 50 per cent by 2013 when the cage-free commitment was announced.
Egg prices may continue to rise as supermarkets and farmers markets continue to rapidly sell out of eggs.
Purchase limits of two cartons per customers have been applied by the major retailers.
The cost of eggs in the United States have gone up 200 per cent in the past decade.
