Cal-Maine Foods Inc., the largest egg producer within the US, has culled roughly 3.6% of its flock after birds at a Texas facility examined optimistic for avian flu, including to issues over a widening outbreak.
Nearly 1.6 million laying hens and 337,000 pullets had been destroyed and manufacturing on the Parmer County plant has briefly ceased, the corporate mentioned in a press release. Shares of the producer plunged as a lot as 6.1%, the largest intraday decline since October, earlier than erasing declines.
That’s the largest hen flu casualty within the US since Dec. 7, when 2.6 million birds had been killed at an egg farm in Ohio after the virus was discovered within the facility, based on knowledge from the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Cal-Maine additionally reported an outbreak at a Kansas facility in December that affected 684,000 hens.
The latest Cal-Maine infections come at a time when extremely pathogenic flu is spreading in dairy cattle herds — together with in Texas — elevating issues in regards to the potential affect on the meals chain. In 2022, the worst-ever international outbreak of the illness prompted greater than 72 million birds to be killed within the US to gradual the unfold of the virus.
This is the primary important outbreak of the spring migration season, and it “shines a spotlight on the prospect of additional cases impacting broader industry production and tightening the egg supply,” Stephens analysts Ben Bienvenu and Jack Hardin wrote in a word.
The firm mentioned it’s working carefully with authorities and business teams to mitigate the danger of future outbreaks. It added that the virus can’t be transmitted by means of safely dealt with and correctly cooked eggs, and that no eggs have been recalled.
Eggs cost $2.47 a dozen final week, lower than half of a file excessive from December 2022, based on USDA knowledge.
Top photograph: Laying hens stand in enriched housing on a farm close to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018. Canada’s minister of agriculture introduced a brand new poultry and egg farmers working group in November to assist them regulate to new commerce agreements such because the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Photographer: Shannon VanRaes/Bloomberg.
Copyright 2024 Bloomberg.
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