Largest egg producer in Southwest loses 95% of its chickens in Arizona to bird flu

BUCKEYE, Ariz. (KPHO/Gray News) — An Arizona farm and one of the largest egg producers in the U.S. confirmed on Friday that it has lost nearly its entire chicken population in the state.

According to Hickman’s Family Farms, about six million birds have been lost due to bird flu.

“I’m here today to tell you that we’ve lost 95% of the chickens we have in the state,” Glenn Hickman, Hickman’s Family Farms’ president and CEO, said.

Hickman said hens at one of the farms began showing symptoms two weeks ago. Swabs were sent to the University of Arizona for analysis, and bird flu was detected.

“We shut down all traffic between farms and all personnel; everything we possibly could do to isolate that farm, and it didn’t work,” Hickman said. “We’ve been slowly losing the other three farms plus our replacement pullet flock over the past two weeks.”

According to Hickman, it’s the first time in 81 years that the company has been unable to fulfill 100% of customer demands.

The family farm said it is working to find alternative suppliers to keep Arizona stores and restaurants stocked.

But Hickman also announced that the situation has forced them to reduce staff at the farms.

The egg producer has approximately 850 employees, including contract workers and state inmates.

“They all have families and unfortunately, they’re going to be impacted by our inability to keep everybody employed as we rebuild our farm,” Hickman said.

It’s unclear how many employees will be affected. Hickman said it will take nearly two years to completely repopulate the farms.

“We need to access the vaccine that the federal government has already approved. We need to be able to start giving it to our flocks and the quicker that we can start vaccinating our nation’s poultry flock, the quicker that we can get back to normalized operations,” Hickman explained.

With measures in place to hopefully eliminate the virus, Hickman says the family’s next priority is prevention.

Egg prices are expected to rise in the Phoenix area as most of the valley’s egg supply comes from Arizona.

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