Eggs are available but more expensive as the holiday baking season begins.

Egg prices are rising again as a prolonged outbreak of bird flu coincides with high demand during the holiday baking season.

But prices are still far from the recent peak they reached almost two years ago. Trade group American Egg Board says the shortage of eggs in grocery stores is isolated and temporary.

“Errors are corrected quickly, sometimes within a day,” said Emily Metz, president and CEO of the Egg Board.

The average price for a dozen eggs in U.S. cities was $3.37 in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is slightly lower than in September and significantly lower than in January 2023, when the average price rose to $4.82. But that figure is up 63% from October 2022, when a dozen eggs cost an average of $2.07.

Metz said the egg industry experiences its highest demand in November and December.

“You can’t make holiday baking, pumpkin pie and stuffing without eggs,” she said.

Bird flu is the main reason for rising prices. The current bird flu outbreak, which began in February 2022, has killed more than 111 million birds, mostly laying hens. Every time a virus is discovered, every bird on the farm is killed to limit the spread of the disease.

This month alone, more than 6 million birds have died due to bird flu. They made up a relatively small portion of the total egg-laying population in the United States of 377 million hens. However, according to the USDA, the herd has declined by about 3% over the past year, leading to a 4% drop in egg production.

The latest wave of bird flu has led to a dwindling supply of caged eggs, with California among the hardest-hit states. California, Nevada, Washington and Oregon require eggs sold in their states to be cage-free.

“We have to ship eggs from other areas of the country that produce cage-free eggs to cover this low supply in those states because those states only allow the sale of cage-free eggs,” Metz said.

Cage-free requirements will take effect in Arizona, Colorado and Michigan next year, and in Rhode Island and Utah in 2030.

The demand for such specialty eggs could also contribute to the spread of avian influenza, which is spread through the droppings of wild birds migrating past farms. Allowing chickens to roam more freely puts them at greater risk, according to Chad Hart, a professor and agricultural economist at Iowa State University.

“It’s very difficult to control interactions between domestic and wild birds,” Hart said. “Some of these vectors have opened up because we’re asking the egg industry to produce in ways we haven’t asked them to before.”

Metz said climate change and extreme weather are also throwing some wild birds off course.

“We have birds that have been displaced by hurricanes and wildfires, and now those birds are circulating in areas that they might not otherwise be circulating, or at times of year that they might not otherwise be circulating,” she said. “And these are all new variables that our farmers have to deal with.”

Hart said the egg industry is trying to rebuild the flock, but that could also limit supply as farmers have to hold back some of the eggs to allow them to hatch into new chicks.

However, there is some good news about U.S. poultry farms. The price of chicken feed, which accounts for 70% of a farmer’s costs, has fallen significantly after doubling between 2020 and 2022, Hart said.

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Durbin reported from Detroit. Funk reported from Omaha. Vancleave reported from Minneapolis.