BRANDON, S.D. (KELO) — Avian flu is being blamed for the latest spike in egg prices at the grocery store, where it’s now not unusual to pay north of $6 per dozen.
Cherry Rock Farms in Brandon recently added 300 chicks to its flock.
“Every year, we get some chicks just to replenish our stock from the previous year,” Cherry Rock Farms owner Marco Patzer said.
Owner Marco Patzer says the birds won’t start laying eggs for 16-18 weeks and need plenty of attention between now and then, especially in sub-zero weather.
Scam call warning from Lincoln County Sheriff
“Baby chicks, they want it to be about 100-degrees so to battle those temperature differences it’s kind of a challenge for sure,” Marco Patzer said.
“They’re like little babies. They require a lot of heat and love and it seems like we can’t keep their food full and their water full, so it’s really like a full-time job,” Cherry Rock Farms owner Laura Patzer said.
Cherry Rock Farms also has more than 100 adult chickens, but Laura Patzer says due to the cold they’re only producing three or four dozen usable eggs per day.
“We do what we can with the eggs we have and every day we walk out to cracked eggs because they’re just freezing as fast as we can get out there,” Laura Patzer said.
That number will more than triple during the summer months.
“We’ll produce about 70-80 dozen eggs a week, which is nice for our demand. We still can’t really keep up, that’s why we ordered even more chicks this year than we have previously, just to try to really meet the public’s demand,” Laura Patzer said.
The Patzers say they don’t necessarily make money off of the eggs or chickens, but allow the animals to roam their vegetable fields in the summer as part of their fertilizer program.
“We’re not going to take advantage of the market just because everybody else has their egg prices higher,” Marco Patzer said.
“The food costs aren’t going up, our production costs really aren’t going up dramatically but we can always change as the times change, but at this time we just haven’t seen a need to raise our prices,” Laura Patzer said.
And with reinforcements on the way, Marco hopes the best is yet to come.
“This year’s batch looks extra healthy and we’re kind of excited about it,” Marco Patzer said.
Cherry Rock Farms is currently taking orders for eggs which they’re selling for $5 per dozen. Marco says the new chicks will be at full production by mid-June.
