Avian Anxiety: The Forecast for Bird Flu

Todd Price: Welcome to Short Talks from the Hill, a research and economic development podcast of the University of Arkansas.

My name is Todd Price.

We’ve all noticed over the last few years that the price of eggs has skyrocketed, and sometimes the shelves have been bare. The reason is bird flu. When the virus is found in a flock, the entire flock must be euthanized to stop the spread of the disease. Millions of chickens have been killed.

Jada Thompson, an economist in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas, studies the poultry industry, which is the most important agricultural sector in the state. In her research, she focuses on animal health and livestock economics. She is here today to answer our questions about bird flu.

Jada Thompson, welcome to Short Talks.

Jada Thompson: Glad to be here. Thanks.

TP: So this strain of the bird flu, the H5N1 strain, has been circulating in the United States since around 2022. Is that normal for a bird flu strain to be a problem that long? Is it going to die out or is it here to stay?

JT: I think the question is, “What is normal?” I think nobody wants a HPAI, or highly pathogenic avian influenza which is that H5N1 strain, to be normal. Historically, most of the strains have died out. So you get warm weather, you see the dying out of the host, and then the virus kind of dies off.

And then maybe a couple of years later, we might get a new strain, or we might go a decade between. This particular one, specifically has an effect because it’s host adapted, which means that the birds that are carrying it in the wild aren’t being as affected as the commercial birds. And so specifically, chickens and turkeys are more susceptible and have a higher mortality rate because of the disease.

And so, I think the concern is, what happens when the host can keep carrying it? And then the birds that are getting it are the commercial birds that we see. I don’t want it to be here to stay. I think that we’re going to figure out some alternative solutions for control and monitoring and surveillance and eradication, but until that point I think we’re definitely going to have to keep an eye on it.

TP: And is that the main way this is spread — from wild birds to chickens and turkeys?

JT: The primary mechanism is going to be wild bird pathways. And so, the wild birds are going to migrate, and they are going to bring that disease kind of north and south. You also have wildlife that are going to carry that. So, migratory birds ,you also have local birds. And so this disease is going to carry by respiratory droplets and also by fecal materials. So think of a little mouse that picks up some goose poop outside that is going to take it into the house. And so there’s a whole bunch of different mechanisms that it could enter a house.

TP: So, poultry is a big industry in Arkansas. In 2024, we seem to have got pretty lucky. There weren’t a lot of outbreaks here, but towards the end of the year there were some. Why did we get lucky and how did things look for next year?

JT: Arkansas, while we raise kind of all three of the large poultry sectors — turkeys, broilers and layers which produce the eggs — we’re predominantly a broiler state. And we get lucky geographically on two counts. We’re a little bit more south, so it’s a little bit warmer. And that virus doesn’t do as well in the heat. And then predominantly because we’re raising more broilers, which younger birds aren’t as susceptible as older birds.

So layer birds are older. They’re more susceptible to disease, which means that the birds that are going to be more likely to get this disease are going to be older chickens, which are going to be those layer birds.

TP: Broilers, those are the chickens that we buy to put on the barbecue grill to cook. So that’s for meat, right?

JT: Absolutely. So broilers are going to be what we’re eating. When I go to Chick-fil-A, that’s what I’m consuming. They’re just not as old. They’re less susceptible. And so we’re not seeing as many outbreaks in the broiler industry. Not saying that we’re not seeing. Arkansas has been hit. And those farms are economically disadvantaged. But, in general, Arkansas has been pretty lucky overall.

JT: So we call this bird flu. But other animals have been infected. House cats. Big cats at zoos and animal parks. Cows. Even some people. How concerned should we be about this spreading to other animals, becoming a larger pandemic and a larger issue?

JT: Yeah, so I heard a veterinarian the other day make a statement that while we call it “bird flu,” it’s really an influenza virus. And specifically, it can spread to any animal. It’s zoonotic, which means spreads between animals. The concern is that it becomes human-to-human transfer. And so when we get into cattle, it’s not having the same impact. So cows don’t have high mortality rates like chickens do.

TP: So they get sick, but they don’t die.

JT: Exactly. And we don’t have to depopulate cows because they’re getting sick. We just remove their milk from the system, and then whenever they recover, they get back into the system. The concern is always when it gets into humans, will it become human-to-human transfer? And that becomes a concern that we have in terms of watching it.

And so, yes, we are we are concerned about it. You talk about every large influenza event in human history up to this point has typically come from birds. The Spanish influenza of 1918 was a bird flu. And so I think that, we don’t want that to happen. I think we’re trying to take all of the control mechanisms we can, but we are watching it to make sure it’s not mutating into a human-to-human transfer.

TP: So, you know, for those of us who don’t study the poultry industry or work in it, we see the effects primarily of this bird flu in the price of eggs. We go to the grocery store, eggs get more expensive or there’s not many on the shelves. It makes sense. When a flock gets infected, you have to kill off the entire flock to stop the spread.

How localized are these effects? I mean, if there is a flock in Missouri that has to be wiped out, are we going to feel that in Arkansas or are they going to feel it in Texas, California, or the whole country? Or are these much more localized effects when the prices get higher?

JT: So I’m an economist, and we’re going to equivocate a little on both of those questions. So there are regional and there are national effects. It depends on how large the outbreak is. And it depends a little bit on the system that it’s coming into. And so we might feel those egg prices in Arkansas from Missouri. I’m going to guess that in general Texas might not as much. And so there’s this spatial degradation of that impact.

But there are very large pockets of egg production. So the Midwest — Iowa, Indiana, Illinois — we have these large pockets of egg production that are also producing a lot of processed egg products. So when you and I eat eggs, we think the scrambled eggs we’re for breakfast. We also eat eggs and breads, cakes, cookies and all of the other goods that use eggs as emulsifiers. And so we feel those impacts everywhere across the U.S., because all of those processed egg products aren’t necessarily locally produced. Those might be produced in Iowa. And so “both” is the answer. We both have kind of these regional impacts and the large national scale impacts.

TP: And you know, we see those egg prices spike up. But I guess what you’re saying is also there are increases in other products that maybe we don’t notice as much because they’re not as dramatic. Is that’s what’s happening?

JT: Yeah. So what we what we see is that those other products that use eggs might increase their prices a little bit. There’s a little bit of some sticky price effect, so it might not increase immediately. Also there’s shrinkflation that happens. And so we might also have this impact where, somebody might reduce the scale or size of their product just slightly to reduce that kind of price pinch. You can’t reduce the size of a carton of eggs. If I want a dozen eggs, I want 12 eggs. And so we see the direct impacts, and we don’t get to see the little bit of shrinkflation to kind of offset those impacts.

TP: So when prices go up because there’s been an outbreak, how long does it take for them to come back?

JT: I did a study with some colleagues at the university here, James Mitchell and Trey Malone, who’s now at Purdue University. And we basically showed that egg prices, because of biological lags in the replenishment system, you’re going to see about a five-month lag in terms of when eggs can get back into the system.

And so there’s some impact for at least 5 to 6 months. At the end of the day, it’s not the same high price for those six months. But there is this system that happens where the prices are going to be impacted until you can get supplies back online, and it just takes a while to get supplies back online. You can’t hurry biology.

TP: And so is there anything we can do to change the way we produce eggs or distribute eggs that could lessen the impacts?

JT: I think obviously some control measures, and I think we’re trying to do everything we can to reduce the disease incidence. I think for the system, I think there’s a lot of things that the egg industries are doing to adjust supplies or intentionally adjusting the replenishment system on the off chance that we’re getting the disease.

You’re having to predict when a disease is going to happen and you’re having to predict how many birds are going to be out of the system. And if I have overcompensated, now I have too many birds. And the cost of eggs aren’t going to compensate for my having an oversupply. And effectively, I’m going to lose money.

And so there’s this nice balance of trying to predict how many birds are going to be impacted, but also not over predict or not have an oversupply of birds.

TP: Right. Because we have no idea when an outbreak will occur or where it will occur.

JT: Exactly. And that is a bit of the issue, or the concern, within the egg industry. 2023 wasn’t a big year. And so they if they had responded the way they did in 2022, we’d have had massive oversupply. And then 2024, we started seeing the numbers pick back up. Well, how did we know that 2024 was going to be a big year? And so, it’s a little bit of a moving target. And if somebody out there can do some really great forecasting, I have a job for you.

TP: So this strain has been around for several years. We don’t know how long it’ll be around. Is there anything we can do, or is this just what we’re going to have to live with?

JT: I think for right now, until either the disease dies out or we get some kind of other control measure like a vaccine, I think we’re going to have to just keep an eye on the marketplace. It’s going to keep floating around. We’re showing that it’s not going away, that we’re going to have to continue to address this and thinking about how we readjust our supplies, our replenishment systems, to adjust for the disease outbreak.

TP:  Well, Jada, thanks for coming.

JT: Yeah, thanks for having me.

TP: Short Talks from the Hill is available wherever you get your podcasts. For more information on additional podcasts, visit ArkansasResearch.uark.edu, the home of science and research news at the University of Arkansas. Music for Short Talks from the Hill was written and performed by local musician Ben Harris.