Clucking over egg shortages and rising prices? Colorado’s new cage-free law is not to blame

Last week, the full extent of Colorado’s cage-free egg law went into effect, requiring that all eggs sold in the state come from free-roaming hens. 

However, egg shortages and rising prices are due to the continued impacts of the highly pathogenic avian influenza on producers.

“You may have seen egg shelves bare or purchase limits or prices very high right now with eggs. That is high path avian influenza having an impact on the marketplace, that is not the cage-free egg law,” said Kate Greenberg, Colorado’s commissioner of agriculture, at the Jan. 8 Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting. “These just happened to coincide at the same time.” 

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Greenberg added that Colorado’s egg producers have spent the last four years — following the legislative directive to move toward cage-free — coming into compliance. By Jan. 1, all commercial Colorado egg-laying facilities met the requirements of the law.

However, as the law hit, producers in Colorado and the country were hit by avian flu and are working back to full operation, she noted. 

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“We, over the last two months, saw the deepest decline in egg-laying hens because of high-path avian influenza,” Greenberg said. 

Avian flu has impacted nearly 10 million domestic birds in Colorado since 2022 and 127 million nationwide, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture. The Colorado outbreak peaked last July and August — with cases in poultry, dairy and humans confirmed — but has continued to have impacts. Greenberg noted that Colorado producers have received around $64 million from the federal government for losses from the disease. 

Poultry producers hit by the virus saw 98% of their flocks die within 48 hours once infected, she said.  

Part of the challenge with the most recent outbreak is that this strain of the virus “is unlike one we’ve ever seen,” Greenberg said.

Not only did the virus cross over between domestic poultry and dairy cattle but there is no end in sight. 

“In the past, it was seasonal. We could say as migrations slow down with wild birds, high-path (avian influenza) will slow down in domestic poultry. That has not been the case and now with dairy cattle coming on board and being affected by the virus, it’s a much more variable and unpredictable situation,” Greenberg said. 

As a result, this outbreak “put a hit on both the cage-free and conventional supply across the country and we’re seeing price points for both conventional and cage-free skyrocket,” she added.  

In its weekly egg markets overview dated Jan. 3, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the flu has hit all types of egg productions — caged, cage-free and organic — but that cage-free operations “experienced disproportionate loss” in 2024. Cage-free operations experienced losses of around 56% resulting in “significant price impacts for cage-free eggs,” it added. 

While prices fluctuated throughout 2024, the cost of a dozen eggs rose by around 45% from January to November, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index. 

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s daily price report for Jan. 8, the price to retailers for a dozen large white eggs ranged from $6.05 to $6.13 in the region that includes Colorado. 

At Western Slope City Market locations — including locations in Summit, Eagle, Garfield, Grand, Pitkin, Garfield and Routt counties  — the cost of a generic brand of 12 cage-free white eggs was $7.19 on Thursday, Jan. 9. According to the City Market website, these locations are limiting the sale of eggs to two cartons per person “due to high demand.”     

Safeway locations in Eagle, Summit, Grand and Routt counties had 12 cage-free white eggs listed for $6.99 on Thursday. 

On Wednesday, Parks and Wildlife Commissioner Marie Haskett claimed that the cost of a dozen eggs has soared to $13.49 in Meeker.

With weekly dairy testing and ongoing work in the state, Greenberg reported, currently, “Colorado is in a good place” in terms of disease prevalence, but that it will take time to recover from the impacts.

“We know it’s tough on consumers, but high-path (avian influenza) is tough on us all right now,” Greenberg said. 

Parks and Wildlife Commissioner Chairman Dallas May, also a cattle and agricultural producer in Lamar, said that this situation is an example of greater challenges facing the agriculture industry. 

“I don’t think society realizes the delicacy of our food supply. It only takes one thing like this to take out eggs,” May said. “As we put more and more pressure on our agricultural industry and producers, it may seem like we’re doing something good in one way, but we’re really hurting ourselves, maybe for the long-term future.”