Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins this weekend provided some uncommon recommendation to People pissed off by rising egg costs: increase your personal chickens.
“Individuals are kind of trying round pondering, ‘Wow, properly possibly I can get a hen in my yard,’ and it’s superior,” Rollins told Fox & Friends Weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy. The agriculture secretary, who was sworn in final month to the place in President Donald Trump’s cupboard, added she has her personal yard chickens.
Rollins additionally referred to elevating chickens at house in a Wall Street Journal op-ed final week.
“We additionally need to make it simpler for households to lift yard chickens,” she wrote as she defined her five-part plan to cut back egg costs.
Egg costs have reached record highs in current weeks, with some areas of the U.S. seeing a dozen go for $10 or increased. A lot of the worth jumps have been blamed on chicken flu outbreaks, which have killed hundreds of thousands of chickens and triggered poultry producers to kill hundreds of thousands extra to cease the unfold of the an infection.
That’s led to fewer birds, which in flip has led to fewer eggs, resulting in rising costs, shortages in supermarkets and egg surcharges in eating places.
NerdWallet notes that egg costs had for probably the most half stayed beneath $2 a dozen from 2016 till they began to leap in 2022. Common egg costs hit a document $4.95 per dozen in January of this yr, up from $4.15 only one month earlier.
And it is probably not over but: Final month, the U.S. Division of Agriculture mentioned egg costs might bounce 40% this yr.
However regardless of the rising costs, many People aren’t prepared to lift their very own chickens ― or can’t, as a result of they might not have a yard or native laws could forbid livestock. There are different issues as properly, together with the truth that yard chickens can also contract bird flu.
Those that do determine to lift their very own chickens could not discover themselves saving any scratch.
OSU Extension livestock specialist Dana Zook told USA Today that eggs would wish to value $10 a dozen for 3 years earlier than a yard coop with eight hens would repay.
Given these realities, critics clucked again at Rollins on social media:
