Two of U.S. egg producer’s Michael Meals’ third-party contracted layer flocks examined constructive for extremely pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), in line with a latest press launch from the producer’s dad or mum firm Put up Holdings on Might twenty ninth, 2024.
Collectively, the farms home roughly 5.7 million birds, which is roughly 14% of Put up Holdings’ layer provide.
Put up Holdings’ administration stated the corporate doesn’t count on to supply extra updates on its HPAI incidents except they exceed an extra 5% of its layer flock.
In December 2023, the producer confirmed two of its egg laying flocks had contracted HPAI, totaling 4.2 million affected layer hens, or roughly 10% of Put up Holding’s flock on the time.
Following the announcement that HPAI had once more entered its layer flocks, Put up Holdings stated it anticipated the incidents to have little impression on its earnings outlook, however that its steerage didn’t embrace a vital unfold of the illness.
Put up Holdings’ HPAI standing in 2023
In November 2023, Put up Holdings reported a 2.1% decline in egg quantity in the course of the fourth quarter of fiscal yr 2023, in comparison with the identical quarter within the earlier yr.
Jeff Zadoks, the corporate’s president and CEO on the time, indicated that the quantity change was associated to HPAI outbreaks that occurred in 2022 in rivals flocks. Moreover, the corporate famous that it was affected far much less severely in 2022 in comparison with different egg corporations.
“We had been in a position within the fourth quarter of final yr to take benefit of avian influenza impacting our rivals prior to it impacted us, so we had been in a position to decide up some quantity that wouldn’t have been our regular quantity,” Zadoks stated in a quarterly earnings name held on November seventeenth, 2023.
On the time of the earnings name, solely two layer flocks in the U.S. had examined constructive for HPAI in 2023, one on November third and one other on November 14th. In line with the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service (APHIS), nearly 43.4 million desk egg layers had been depopulated as a result of illness in 2022.
