This past week I was at the APPPA Conference in Dallas — a 3-day conference where I had the pleasure to collaborate with many other pastured-poultry farmers, which will drastically help improve our pasture-raised poultry management.
Ok, before you say “boring!” — we had LOTS of fun social activities. Especially with Aaron, our poultry manager, whom I took out of his cage for once and brought him with me, or should I say, "brought him out to pasture," haha. Our favorite was the rooster crow competition. You can watch Aaron’s crow here if you want a laugh.
Joe and Aaron with cardboard Joel Salatin at the APPPA Conference.
Lol, but I digress.
A topic that somehow EVERYONE had on their minds and wouldn’t shut up about at the conference was Avian Influenza, which most of you have likely heard about in the news recently as:
BIRD FLU.
There’s been some speculation that this bird flu is just a deliberate hoax created to cause food shortages — but from my perspective, I’ll assure you that yes, it is REAL (and that’s coming from someone who’s DIRECTLY impacted).
A few of the pastured-poultry producers (which I have spoken with) at the conference had experienced an outbreak from this flu on their very own farm at one point. A nice reminder for me to be grateful and thank God for his protection over our farm, and not take anything for granted.
Most farms, though, being affected by this bird flu are the large, factory commercial operations. And you might actually be indifferent to it, including us even; especially considering that those ‘big’ commercial farms use conventional practices (resulting in “nocturnal” hens living in dark cages living off of pure GMOs) — which for Wanda Farms, are BIG NO NO.
But… These big farms being impacted may actually SIGNIFICANTLY impact your day-to-day life as well (You’ll find out why later in this blog).
At the same time, it is honestly very sad that in many of these large operations, hundreds of thousands to even MILLIONS of birds can just get wiped out in the snap of fingers. But this is nothing new.
This 'AI' bird flu has been around in the poultry industry since 2016. Only In 2022, however, has it started to have such a prominent effect on the industry. ANY farms with flocks that show ANY signs of this flu must report it to USDA vet officials IMMEDIATELY — and not to mention, quarantine their farms with no birds for 150 days before bringing new flocks back to the farm (It is even recommended to cull all living birds right away to prevent the spread further).
If you are curious, you can see how it’s affecting each state in real time here.
So, what is Wanda Farms’ plan to be prepared?
We plan to continue on as normal… Because we ALREADY take all the necessary precautions (being Divinely protected helps too, ig).
I consider the precautions we take somewhat 'common sense' (but common sense ain't that common, huh?).
For example, If we visit another poultry farm, or our chicken processing facility, we will wash our boots, and even our clothes if necessary.
For our farm, it’s unrealistic to lock down our birds inside their houses with NO access to pasture just to “prevent the risk of infection”. If anything, the only reason they get sick would be because we locked them inside (poor birds). And by locking our birds inside they would NOT be "pasture-raised," and we are NOT going to change our egg operation from pasture-raised to 'cage-free.'
The joyful hens of Wanda Farms
And by the way, some brands that advertise as pasture-raised —- I’m not going to call anyone out but, probably *cough cough* your go-to grocery store eggs — are doing EXACTLY this (caging their hens), and STILL sell their eggs as pasture-raised?!
Isn't that misleading?
Anyways. Some folks might say Wanda Farms is in a high-risk situation as a regenerative pasture-raised farm; reason being that wild birds could potentially come in contact with our chickens. And I don’t disagree.
I’m actually trying to fight my insurance company right now to insure ALL of our farm’s poultry. I guess they're also scared of the recent outbreaks and don’t want to take on that liability (FARMING is very high-risk. Anyone in this business who wants to succeed likely has to be driven by something outside of themselves).
Now, to continue about how this impacts YOUR day-to-day life.
The simple answer: Economics 101. Allow me to demonstrate.
Chickens die from flu = no chickens… And with no chickens, who's gonna lay all these eggs?
There's only so much pasture-raised eggs that can supply everyone’s desire to eat in a healthy way. This will, obviously, result in everyone fighting (gruesomely too, haha) to get their hands on those eggs before anyone else does — because the supply is so low.
And what happens when SUPPLY is low? DEMAND increases. Which means that the prices go UP. But I bet you already knew that, haha; and that you'll thus have to pay MORE for the SAME dozen eggs.
We are currently getting incredible pressure from existing wholesale accounts for more eggs — our wholesale prices and retail prices are less than the commodity priced caged white eggs on the open market.
We recognize this demand and need for eggs, and are doing what we can to expand. It might take some time, though, as does anything worthwhile. I’m going to sign papers on a 80k loan to purchase upgraded layer poultry equipment, which will increase our flock capacity by another 60%.
As you can see, yes, I’m quite invested in this.
We will be doing some pricing adjustments on our eggs in the next week or 2 (as of writing this blog), and might need to implement a maximum purchase quantity if things get real crazy.
I do expect this 'situation' to continue for most of 2025 as it’s going to take time for the big flocks to recover from these blows. Now that farming has changed from small family farms to industrial, mega farms it ONLY takes a few to get hit for the ENTIRE food supply to feel the blow.
All this said, I think it shows us again how our food system may be in a bubble that can *POP* at any moment — and reconfirms our commitment to transform agricultural food production from a commodity to a service that nourishes our local community with not only sustainable food, but food of superior quality.
Our prayers go out for all the farms taking these losses — and we pray for this to evoke a big positive change to our food system.
God Bless,
Joe
