Tag: avian influenza

Amid a national egg shortage, local farmers continue to deliver

CHAMPAIGN — Americans have felt the pain of inflation in grocery stores this year. The USDA estimates that the cost of groceries was 10.6 percent higher in November 2022 than November 2021. Prices may finally be on their way down as the Federal Reserve tinkers with interest rates, but the cost of one product –

As bird flu sweeps across U.S. even small, backyard flocks are at risk

In fall 2020, Leah Shaffer ordered four chickens from a Missouri hatchery — a pandemic impulse purchase to get her two children outside, she said. “I wanted them to have a reason to go out basically into the backyard and just have some real life sort of experience with nature instead of just computer time,”