Easter to be impacted by price inflation and shortages

The Easter holiday weekend is quickly approaching. Like so many items at the store, eggs and chicken prices continue to stay high due to avian flu issues.

"Backyard chickens, they grow almost every year," said Rob O’Hara, president at Mt. Healthy Hatchery.

A growing number of people are bypassing the high prices at grocery stores and taking matters into their own hands.

"Farm stores are claiming they’re up 300%," said O’Hara.

In business for almost a century, Mt. Healthy Hatchery says it can barely keep up with demand.

"People are panicking a little and I think anytime you have any instability in markets people go back to their roots," said O’Hara.

Back to their roots and into their backyards, communities across the country are looking at rules and regulations for having backyard chickens.

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Some chicken owners haven’t purchased eggs in years, and they say they’re saving money by skipping the store.

"Interestingly enough, I didn’t really know what egg prices were because we were eating our chickens’ eggs," said chicken owner Michelle Taylor.

However, others say that owning chickens is not the way to go.

"If they think they can produce eggs cheaper than you can find them in the store, even with the high prices, they can’t," said Dr. Jacqueline Jacob with the Department of Animal and Food Sciences from the University of Kentucky.

If your Easter meals include plenty of eggs, the latest USDA report shows customers likely won’t see a large drop in prices compared to the beginning of the year.

"They’re keeping an eye on prices to see whether or not they’re going to have an Easter roll or an Easter egg hunt or whatever using real Easter eggs or not," said Dr. Jacob.