STANLY COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A Stanly County farm says neighbors are cutting out the middleman to sidestep supermarket prices.
“Unfortunately, I had to go buy my own eggs the other day, even with 200 chickens here. I was not impressed with the pricing. It’s definitely not what it used to be,” Anna Greene, owner of Greene Acre Farms, a poultry farm in Stanly County.
She says buying eggs from local farmers would probably be better for shoppers’ wallets, but recently, calls have changed from requests to buy eggs to ones to buy hens to start their own backyard flocks.
“So I even have a supplier now where I’m trying to get weekly and biweekly shipments of actual laying hens that are between nine months to a year old. So they’re at their prime of wanting to start a new life for you. So hopefully that kind of helps out a little bit in the community,” Greene says.
Now, she’s selling more chickens than at any time since starting her farm three years ago. Her nine-year-old daughter McKenzi says she’s noticed her own workload increase to meet demand.
“I feel like we have to do a little bit more because we’ve gotten more chickens since more people have been coming. We were probably doing like 15 to 20 minutes at the beginning and now it’s probably around 30 to 40,” said McKenzi.
An aggressive strain of avian flu — better known as bird flu — is hurting supply and causing prices to rise with no relief in sight.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average price of eggs in December 2024 was $4.15; a .50 increase from November 2024. The annual rolling average price is $3.17.
Greene says there’s a clear benefit to buying your eggs or hens locally.
“Whether or not they’re going to be fertilized and how they need to store them honestly if they’re not washed. Setting them out on their own, your counter will actually make them last up to two-ish months, whereas when you buy your store-bought eggs, they’ve already been refrigerated, they’ve been washed, and the bloom has come off. So it allows for bacteria to creep into the egg, which is why they don’t last nearly as long,” Greene explained.
Agriculture officials predict the cost of eggs will only get worse this year, with prices expected to rise by 20%.
