Avian flu forces Hickman’s to euthanize 95% of Arizona egg flock
June 5
The avian flu has decimated chicken farmers across the nation, is now having drastic consequences for Arizona’s largest producer of eggs.
Hickman’s Family Farms is headquartered in Buckeye and has numerous farms the largest egg company in the Southwest and among the top 20 nationwide, according to the company. However, the recent rise of avian flu has forced them to euthanize 95% of the company’s birds in Arizona
The egg supplier is still operating out of its facilities in Maricopa and Grand Junction, Colorado, where it has about 300,000 birds each. But Hickman’s has lost roughly 6 million hens. The company’s large-scale farms in the West Valley are all closed, and they are planning to lay off hundreds of its 850 workers and end its inmate labor program.
Glenn Hickman, President of Hickman’s Family Farms joined “Arizona Horizon” to provide insight onto the avian flu’s impact on the company’s operations and how they plan to recover from the loss of millions of hens.
According to Hickman, the company noticed an uptick in mortality in one of their barns in mid-May, and after some testing was done with the University of Arizona, they found bird flu was indeed spreading through out the barn. “Since that time, we’ve been depopulating that farm and now we’ve gotten three other farms infected,” Hickman said.
What has made this infection of their flock more painful is the fact a vaccine for this strain of bird flu has existed for years, but is being blocked from use by the government according to Hickman. “This vaccine started being manufacturing two years ago in our country, and it’s being shipped to Europe to protect those farmers’ flocks,” Hickman said. “We’re unable to buy that vaccine to protect our flocks, it’s kinda stuck in the typical Washington, D.C. quagmire.”
Responding to a statement made by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) spokesperson in Newsweek citing “distribution, surveillance, and trade ramifications” for lack of vaccine access, Hickman believes the trade concerns of other businesses are preventing him from getting the shots. “The meat bird industry doesn’t want vaccines to get started in the United States and so they’re the ones blocking it,” Hickman said. “The rest of the statement is completely untrue. We vaccinate our birds right now, this would just be added to that vaccination package, it would require no extra handling.”
As for concerns of more egg price increases due to the loss of birds, Hickman stressed the overall size of the egg industry and guessed the flock loss at his farms wouldn’t likely impact consumers. “While we’re fairly large in geographic area, the egg market is a national market,” Hickman said. “So we have about 6 million of the 330 million of the bird capacity. So losing our birds probably won’t affect the market much.”