Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins this weekend offered some unusual advice to Americans frustrated by rising egg prices: raise your own chickens.
“People are sort of looking around thinking, ‘Wow, well maybe I can get a chicken in my backyard,’ and it’s awesome,” Rollins told Fox & Friends Weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy. The agriculture secretary, who was sworn in last month to the position in President Donald Trump’s cabinet, added she has her own backyard chickens.
Rollins also referred to raising chickens at home in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week.
“We also want to make it easier for families to raise backyard chickens,” she wrote as she explained her five-part plan to reduce egg prices.
Egg prices have reached record highs in recent weeks, with some areas of the U.S. seeing a dozen go for $10 or higher. Much of the price jumps have been blamed on bird flu outbreaks, which have killed millions of chickens and caused poultry producers to kill millions more to stop the spread of the infection.
That’s led to fewer birds, which in turn has led to fewer eggs, leading to rising prices, shortages in supermarkets and egg surcharges in restaurants.
NerdWallet notes that egg prices had for the most part stayed under $2 a dozen from 2016 until they started to jump in 2022. Average egg prices hit a record $4.95 per dozen in January of this year, up from $4.15 just one month earlier.
And it may not be over yet: Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said egg prices could jump 40% this year.
But despite the rising prices, many Americans aren’t ready to raise their own chickens ― or can’t, because they may not have a yard or local regulations may forbid livestock. There are other problems as well, including the fact that backyard chickens can also contract bird flu.
Those who do decide to raise their own chickens may not find themselves saving any scratch.
OSU Extension livestock specialist Dana Zook told USA Today that eggs would need to cost $10 a dozen for three years before a backyard coop with eight hens would pay off.
Given those realities, critics clucked back at Rollins on social media:
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