Iowa, the largest table egg producer in the country, was severely impacted by the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreak for much of last year. As Figures 1 and 2 indicate, inventories of layer producing table eggs both at the national level and in Iowa started to slowly recover back in October 2015, but it wasn’t until May 2016 when inventories surpassed those from the same period a year ago. At the national level, the inventory of layers producing table eggs in August 2016 (299 million birds) was up 8.4% relative to the previous year (276 million birds). The most recent data available for Iowa (July 2016) indicates that the number of layers in flocks 30,000 and above (50.8 million layers) was up 56.5% compared with those in July 2015. Despite these substantial increases, inventories remain below those in 2014 (see Figure 2).

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