Look for the price of eggs to keep going up this year. We've seen higher prices over the past couple years, and some might have noticed empty shelves here and there. The upward pressure on egg prices is not tied to across-the-board inflation, which peaked in 2022 and has settled back under 3% since the summer. The issue now, reports The Associated Press, is bird flu, which has caused poultry farmers to put down millions of chickens a month. The poultry industry in Alabama is huge. According to the Alabama Poultry and Egg Association, the industry employs 86,000 people in the state. A bird-flu outbreak began in 2022, and egg prices have more than doubled to more than $4 a dozen at the end of last year. Whenever the flu is detected on a poultry farm, all the birds are slaughtered. And that's often more than a million chickens in today's huge egg facilities. Since the outbreak began, it's estimated that more than 145 million chickens and other fowl have been killed. On top of that dent in egg supply, cage-free laws have gone into effect in numerous states. Complicating mitigation is that cattle have been getting sick from this strain. In cattle it's rarely fatal, so the animals aren't slaughtered when they get sick. Health officials say that infected animals are kept out of the food supply. Raw milk is the only food product that's so far been linked to illnesses. | 