Recreational farmer Tania Coulombe raises chickens for her community and has been worried about the ongoing threat of bird flu.
“That’s a huge concern for me. We definitely will not be bringing any full-grown birds into our flock this year. We are adding some chicks but at an egg level. I’m not even bringing chicks into the flock. The consequences could be catastrophic at our home," Coulombe said.
Owner of two northern San Luis Obispo County businesses, Nature's Touch Nursery & Harvest and Creston Valley Meats, Melanie Blankenship has been in touch with USDA officials for guidance on keeping her produce safe from bird flu exposure.
“Creston Valley Meats is a USDA state-inspected and also FDA-approved facility here in San Luis Obispo County. We are provided at times direct access to a USDA vet [whose] specialty is making sure the overall health of these animals are safe enough to go into the food industry," Blankenship said. "If there’s any simple worry, it’s condemned and it's not allowed to go into any human or pet food.”
The USDA officials offered insight into the bird flu outbreak in the U.S. and the egg shortage that followed.
According to the USDA, the country lost 46 million egg-laying hens between October 2024 and February 2025. California lost 10 million of its egg-laying hens, about 70 percent of the state's egg-laying hens, between October and December 2024.
Officials predict that once producers in California replace those hens, the shortage will lift and egg prices will start to lower. Blankenship explained that improvements in these areas depend on our understanding of the bird flu's spread and how to stop it.
"If we can do a better job managing the virus now, I think that November/December won’t be as limited as what we’ve seen in the previous year," Blankenship said.
