Egg chickens and meat chickens are different breeds, typically raised in different farms, and vulnerable to different diseases. It’s a pretty binary split from what I understand – as a chicken breed you’re either good for eating or good for egg-laying, with nothing in the middle.
Meat chickens are made to grow really quick and turned into meat very young, this reduces cost to raise them. Pretty sure they live less than 60 days in the US.
Hard to get eggs from chickens once they are dead. The breed for eggs is also bred to lay more eggs in a given period.
In other words they have both been bred for very specific purposes to maximize output and thus profit.
Eggs need adult chickens (couple months old) that are ready and capable of laying good eggs.
Meat chickens are designed to be rapidly growing as fast as possible so that the chickens are ready for harvest very fast (8 weeks)
This means these chickens aren’t good for laying eggs because this “grow fast” is counter to “live long”. And because eggs layers live longer there’s more investment required to keep them alive and it’s more impactful when something goes wrong
(This is true for US chickens. I assume but can’t be sure it holds true elsewhere) Egg laying chickens are older than chickens used for meat. Since egg laying chickens need to be older to produce eggs, they have more time to get sick from the bird flu going around and therefore more likely to be slaughtered. That means fewer egg laying chickens, fewer eggs, and higher prices.
Chickens raised for meat are generally varieties that grow quickly. They are slaughtered at a younger age than most chickens start producing eggs. Egg laying chickens only produce one and occasionally two eggs a day, but still need to be fed every day. So it takes one chicken 10 to 12 days to produce a dozen eggs. Those eggs that need to be collected, packaged and shipped. Shipping eggs takes a bit more care than shipping chicken meat. So most of the chicken you’re eating from the supermarket is less than 10 weeks old while most chickens don’t start laying eggs until about 20 weeks. That’s a lot more investment in feed And if I remember right, egg laying chickens can’t be packed in as tight as meat, chickens for commercial farming because the eggs need to be accessible.
1 factor is that chickens for meat are killed at 6-10 weeks, versus hens starting to lay eggs at about 20. Then you have the fact that you get the value of eggs over time from that point, versus full value of the meat once they’re killed. So a lot more input costs for raising hens due to very different lifespans. I’m guessing there’s other factors, but that must be a significant one
Breading and genetics. A laying hen is bread to produce about as large an egg as they can once a day.
Meat chickens are bread to just grow stupid fast. Like a rotisserie sized chicken is maybe 6 weeks old. My family would raise meat kings and we’d have 6-8 lbs chickens a few months.
Same reason dairy cow is basically worthless as far as beef goes and a beef cow will never produce milk like a dairy cow.
Meat chickens reach maturity and are slaughtered in as short as two 2 months. Hens don’t produce eggs until they are about 4-5 months old and have a service life of roughly a year.
Killing off a flock of egg hens takes much longer to replace than meat chickens and causes more significant supply shocks.
The breeds of Chickens that lay eggs well don’t produce as much meat, and vice versa, meat chickens don’t produce as many eggs.
Meat chickens are harvested between 6-9 weeks. Even if a farm needs to cull birds due to bird flu, in 6-9 weeks they will have another “crop”
Egg layers don’t start laying until 18ish weeks, and many hens don’t lay consistently right away, meaning it takes much longer to replace a reliably laying chicken, so we feel more of the loss in eggs at the market.
Meat chickens are slaughtered so young it doesn’t matter much if you have to cull an entire barn or two to stop the spread of disease. Meat chickens only live for 6-8 weeks.
Egg laying chickens take 4-6 months to be raised to maturity and lay their first eggs, with the first eggs being tiny and/or misshapen (usually used for cheaper products like powder egg), with it taking another month or two to reach full production. Losing a full barn or more is a much bigger deal at that point.
If you look at it from the perspective of cost per unit of protein, eggs are cheap and chicken meat is expensive. What you’re responding to is that grocery stores would treat eggs as loss leaders when their cost was stable and not that they aren’t they’re charging proper prices for them, so their relative price is more expensive, but they are not themselves expensive.
Also, eggs are harder to store and transport, so market prices fluctuate more as there are fewer arbitrage opportunities.
Haven’t seen any answers that are really getting to the heart of your question.
Avian flu has required the culling of chickens on a massive scale, and farms with avian flu outbreaks typically can’t sell their product until it’s dealt with.
This hits egg farms harder than meat farms because egg chickens have to live longer to be profitable. Meat chickens have such short lifespans that they’re generally killed quickly enough already that the chances of a bird flu outbreak is pretty low at a meat chicken farm, and even if there is an outbreak and they have to cull chickens, it’s easier to recover because of the quick turnover.
But egg chickens have to stay alive much longer to become profitable, so avian flu is more likely to cause disruptions because culling a whole egg chicken farm takes longer to recover from. The only other way to make up for that is to raise egg prices.
So yes, it’s because egg chickens and meat chickens are different, but not necessarily because meat chickens are somehow immune to bird flu, just that the meat chicken industry can deal with it and recover from it much more easily.
Comments
Egg chickens and meat chickens are different breeds, typically raised in different farms, and vulnerable to different diseases. It’s a pretty binary split from what I understand – as a chicken breed you’re either good for eating or good for egg-laying, with nothing in the middle.
Meat chickens are made to grow really quick and turned into meat very young, this reduces cost to raise them. Pretty sure they live less than 60 days in the US.
Hard to get eggs from chickens once they are dead. The breed for eggs is also bred to lay more eggs in a given period.
In other words they have both been bred for very specific purposes to maximize output and thus profit.
Chickens that lay eggs don’t taste good to eat.
Eggs need adult chickens (couple months old) that are ready and capable of laying good eggs.
Meat chickens are designed to be rapidly growing as fast as possible so that the chickens are ready for harvest very fast (8 weeks)
This means these chickens aren’t good for laying eggs because this “grow fast” is counter to “live long”. And because eggs layers live longer there’s more investment required to keep them alive and it’s more impactful when something goes wrong
(This is true for US chickens. I assume but can’t be sure it holds true elsewhere) Egg laying chickens are older than chickens used for meat. Since egg laying chickens need to be older to produce eggs, they have more time to get sick from the bird flu going around and therefore more likely to be slaughtered. That means fewer egg laying chickens, fewer eggs, and higher prices.
Chickens raised for meat are generally varieties that grow quickly. They are slaughtered at a younger age than most chickens start producing eggs. Egg laying chickens only produce one and occasionally two eggs a day, but still need to be fed every day. So it takes one chicken 10 to 12 days to produce a dozen eggs. Those eggs that need to be collected, packaged and shipped. Shipping eggs takes a bit more care than shipping chicken meat. So most of the chicken you’re eating from the supermarket is less than 10 weeks old while most chickens don’t start laying eggs until about 20 weeks. That’s a lot more investment in feed And if I remember right, egg laying chickens can’t be packed in as tight as meat, chickens for commercial farming because the eggs need to be accessible.
1 factor is that chickens for meat are killed at 6-10 weeks, versus hens starting to lay eggs at about 20. Then you have the fact that you get the value of eggs over time from that point, versus full value of the meat once they’re killed. So a lot more input costs for raising hens due to very different lifespans. I’m guessing there’s other factors, but that must be a significant one
Egg chickens take up to 6-8 months to lay depending on breed.
Meat chickens are harvested after 6 weeks.
So it takes much longer to “reset” a laying flock than a meat flock.
Breading and genetics. A laying hen is bread to produce about as large an egg as they can once a day.
Meat chickens are bread to just grow stupid fast. Like a rotisserie sized chicken is maybe 6 weeks old. My family would raise meat kings and we’d have 6-8 lbs chickens a few months.
Same reason dairy cow is basically worthless as far as beef goes and a beef cow will never produce milk like a dairy cow.
Meat chickens reach maturity and are slaughtered in as short as two 2 months. Hens don’t produce eggs until they are about 4-5 months old and have a service life of roughly a year.
Killing off a flock of egg hens takes much longer to replace than meat chickens and causes more significant supply shocks.
Takes 60 days to grow a meat chicken. More completion among large meat companies.
Egg layers consume a lot more feed for a lot longer period. And they are not usually suitable for meat when their laying days are over.
The premise of this is actually wrong. The nutritional costs of each are nearly identical.
The protein cost of an egg is 3cents per gram of protein. And, a chicken ranges from 2 cents to 6 cents based on the piece of chicken.
It takes a lot less time to make a chicken fat than it does for it to hit puberty.
The breeds of Chickens that lay eggs well don’t produce as much meat, and vice versa, meat chickens don’t produce as many eggs.
Meat chickens are harvested between 6-9 weeks. Even if a farm needs to cull birds due to bird flu, in 6-9 weeks they will have another “crop”
Egg layers don’t start laying until 18ish weeks, and many hens don’t lay consistently right away, meaning it takes much longer to replace a reliably laying chicken, so we feel more of the loss in eggs at the market.
Meat chickens are slaughtered so young it doesn’t matter much if you have to cull an entire barn or two to stop the spread of disease. Meat chickens only live for 6-8 weeks.
Egg laying chickens take 4-6 months to be raised to maturity and lay their first eggs, with the first eggs being tiny and/or misshapen (usually used for cheaper products like powder egg), with it taking another month or two to reach full production. Losing a full barn or more is a much bigger deal at that point.
If you look at it from the perspective of cost per unit of protein, eggs are cheap and chicken meat is expensive. What you’re responding to is that grocery stores would treat eggs as loss leaders when their cost was stable and not that they aren’t they’re charging proper prices for them, so their relative price is more expensive, but they are not themselves expensive.
Also, eggs are harder to store and transport, so market prices fluctuate more as there are fewer arbitrage opportunities.
Haven’t seen any answers that are really getting to the heart of your question.
Avian flu has required the culling of chickens on a massive scale, and farms with avian flu outbreaks typically can’t sell their product until it’s dealt with.
This hits egg farms harder than meat farms because egg chickens have to live longer to be profitable. Meat chickens have such short lifespans that they’re generally killed quickly enough already that the chances of a bird flu outbreak is pretty low at a meat chicken farm, and even if there is an outbreak and they have to cull chickens, it’s easier to recover because of the quick turnover.
But egg chickens have to stay alive much longer to become profitable, so avian flu is more likely to cause disruptions because culling a whole egg chicken farm takes longer to recover from. The only other way to make up for that is to raise egg prices.
So yes, it’s because egg chickens and meat chickens are different, but not necessarily because meat chickens are somehow immune to bird flu, just that the meat chicken industry can deal with it and recover from it much more easily.