It’s a mixed bag of good reading today, with collections from experienced Minnesota poets plus a debut from a chef-turned-poet (all published late last year and still in print). Our fiction is a thriller set in the land of the Navajo and there’s nonfiction from a man recalling his boyhood experiences before Jacob Wetterling was abducted.

Poetry

“Messages from the Nile”: by Philip S. Bryant (Nodin Press, $17)

The poems in this love letter to place, the fifth collection by a retired professor from Gustavus Adolphus College, are not from Egypt but from St. Peter, Minn., where he lives. The title comes from a quote by Langston Hughes: “I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.” Bryant’s topics include baseball, campfire smoke, a farm repair sign along the highway, and the true meaning of a liberal arts education. He can be both humorous and serious as shown in “The Greasy Grass Blues: Coda for the Battle of the Little Bighorn,” dedicated to the late Native American writer Jim Welch: “Just over the far horizon of those fateful hills, which just goes/To show, when push comes/To shove and it’s up against the wall,/White folks really don’t listen to us…”

“River Language”: by JD Fratzke (Liquid North Publishing, $16)

Fratzke is familiar to focal foodies as a corporate chef, culinary director and restaurant innovator for 30 years, earning him an appearance on Bravo’s “Top Chef” show. A native of Winona, Fratzke wrote columns for hospitality publications but he is also a wilderness enthusiast, and his autobiographical debut poetry collection shows his way with words matches his culinary skills. In a note to the Pioneer Press, Fratzke calls the collection “a sort-of memoir in poetry; missives of gratitude and assessment to the Mississippi River and Minnesota’s wild places for having seen me through the turmoil and pressure of culinary culture as well as the dark places that live in my own heart.” But this is not poetry of dark places; it’s filled with the joys of nature and the place we live. This is a gorgeous collection that got far too little attention. For example, here is part of the title poem: “Rivers birth a certain cadence/that loves to play on strings./They tend to call/ On spirits/long-limbed and earth-colored/that rise/from seams of sand and clay /in the roots/at the foot of a bluff…They move dream-slow/with copper eyes; ravenous to detour /hearts in sorrow.”

“Of Cows and Crows”: by Shelley Getten (Nodin Press, $17)

(Courtesy of Nodin Press)

Minnesota native Getten lives in a log cabin home on the Knife River and maintains Getten Creative studio with her life partner, not far from the shores of Lake Superior. She has spent the past 12 summers teaching art and writing at Summerblue Theatre Arts Camp in Two Harbors and at the Duluth Folk School. In “Of Cows and Crows,” Getten evokes living for 10 years on a hardscabble farm in central Minnesota in a coming-of-age collection in which the narrator navigates the emotional turmoil of her teen years. Her poems show how such a childhood can foster a deep love of the land. In segments titled The Farm, Creatures of Comfort, Word and Refuge, Deep Freeze and In the End, she moves from memories of a cat named Bandit and a cottonwood tree to circus money and farm work: “Under a broiling sun, Deb and I heave heavy rocks onto the front-end loader. When boulders are too big to lift alone, we work together to raise and shuffle fieldstones to the ‘bucket’ in front of the tractor…”

“In the Evening”: by William Reichard (Broadstone Books,$26.25)

In his eighth poetry collection, St. Paul-based Reichard divides his poems into four parts, with topics ranging from Dry Summer to What Love Is. Among his intriguing titles are “The Melancholy Cry of a Bird in the Night” and “Finding Beauty Amid the Wreckage of the Soul.” In a section titled America’s Saints he honors Matthew Shepherd and Harvey Milk, both killed for being gay. In the poem “Two Pandemics” he compares AIDS and COVID, referring to the diseases as “different but the same.” From the title poem: “The night singers are loud/proclaiming themselves/every evening until they run/out of nights and die in/ the cold, or burrow down into/the mud to dream away the winter…”

“Home Words”: by Joyce Sutphen (Red Dragonfly Press, $20)

(Courtesy of Red Dragonfly Press)

Sutphen, aormer Minnesota poet laureate and Minnesota Book Award winner, and a retired professor from Gustavus Adolphus College, completes with “Home Words” her trilogy focused on the changing rural landscape in our state. Her poetry has been published in a variety of literary journals and she was twice a guest on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” In “Home Words” her topics range from memories of her mother as well as early rhubarb, Aunt Betty’s cake and the Children’s Theatre. Here’s an excerpt from “After We Are Gone”: “No one will remember the same things/about this place you will remember/a wagon piled high with wood/and how our father and our uncle/took out a basement window and threw/wood down a chute, and how the sound/was the promise of winter and warmth…” This is accessible poetry for people who think they don’t like poetry.

“Rings of Heartwood: Poems on Growing”: by Molly Beth Griffin, illustrations by Claudia McGehee (Minnesota Historical Society Press, $18.95)

“I’ve been writing stories and poems abut how animals grow for decades,” Molly Beth Griffin writes in her book that blends 12 poems with art and facts. “But it wasn’t until my 6-year-old daughter broke into tears over outgrowing a favorite dress that I realized I wanted to work on a whole collection of poems for kids and their grown-ups on this topic.”

Griffin’s message is that pain and joy are part of the growth process for all living things. With an illustrated poem on one page and scientific information and fun facts on the opposite page, Griffin delves into growth rings in trees that tell its age, how tadpoles become frogs, bat mothers that create communal nurseries, baby opossums who are born in their mother’s pouch, and the unfurling ferns that have been on the Earth 300 million years. Together the poems and artwork show young readers that we all grow, change and adapt as do the woodland, wetlands, and prairie dwellers, helping children understand it’s a natural process.

Minnesotan Griffin is the author of “Ten Beautiful Things” and “Rhoda’s Rock Hunt,” among other books for young readers. Iowa-based artist Claudia McGehee’s muscular, vivid scratchboard and watercolor illustrations make the creatures and their surroundings come alive.

Fiction and nonfiction

“Rabbit Moon”: by Jan E. Payne (Rabbit Hole Publishing, $18)

Payne, who lives in the Leech Lake area in northern Minnesota, draws on her years of experience in the Four Corners of the Navajo Nation in the American southwest to give us an exciting thriller that melds kidnap, murder and intrigue involving end-of-life doula Marin Sinclair. Her dad taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs school near Flagstaff, Ariz., and Marin is one of the few Anglo students among the Dinetah (Navajo Nation) students. After caring for her father for years and then for a smart man she admired, Marin gets a strange invitation to a high school reunion from her estranged best friend. But something is wrong. There is no reunion on the date mentioned and her friend signs her full name and not a nickname. As Marin drives to the supposed reunion, she’s followed by men she’s never seen before. She experiences scary vehicle encounters on back roads, she’s grabbed and nearly forced into a car, and the men chasing her seem to know all about her. The story moves between Marin’s dangerous dilemma and her childhood during which a friend died, for which she blames herself. The author also shows us some of Navajo culture, including stories of Skin Walkers, witches and haunted mesas. When Marin finds herself alone in total darkness in a deep uranium mine she fears she will never see daylight again. This involving fiction is as as good as any published by the big legacy houses.

“Pain in Paynesvlle”: by Kris A. Bertelsen (Kirk House Publishers, $16.95)

(Courtesy of Kirk House Publishers)

Before 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted and murdered in 1989 near his home in St. Joseph, Minn., Kris Bertelsen and his friends were terrorized 30 miles away in Paynesville by a masked man who jumped out of bushes and molested some of them from September 1986 to September of the following year. The boys, who called themselves the Misfits, spent their days biking, fishing, swimming and building forts when they were younger. They referred to the masked man whose face they never saw as Chester the Molester, and they lived in fear of him. Bertelsen was with friends twice when Chester attacked and the second time young Kris thought he was the man’s target. Bertelsen reported the attacks, but the assailant was never found. When news of Jacob’s disappearance made national headlines, Bertelsen and some of his former gang were sure Jacob’s killer, Danny Heinrich, was the man who attacked them. Bertelsen contacted authorities and even Jacob’s father, but nothing came of it. The boys, now grown men, felt they weren’t being listened to although Bertelsen acknowledges law enforcement investigations were going on.

That year of terror in Paynesville left Bertelsen with emotional pain and trauma. In his book, subtitled “My Firsthand Encounters with Terror and the Search for Jacob Wetterling,” Bertelsen recounts his experiences through the 27 years of the Paynesville attacks to Heinrich’s confession and his information about where Jacob’s body could be found. Bertelsen tries to be fair to local law enforcement but he was frustrated at the seeming inability to connect the dots between Paynesville and St. Joseph. He tried to keep a happy face as the years wore on with no news about Jacob, but the trauma seethed in his head and affected his behavior. He writes of the growing recognition now of the necessity of improving communications and services to those affected by crimes. Bertelsen also compliments Patty and Jerry Wetterling for staying strong and gracious through their years without their son. (For insight into the Wetterlings’ thoughts and feelings, read Patty’s memoir “Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope,” Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023.)

Bertelsen is an award-winning economic educator, therapist and advocate for survivors who has published articles, lesson plans and videos for educators in economics and personal finance.

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AUTHOR FAIR: Eigth annual Anoka County fair features William Kent Krueger, who writes the Cork O’Connor mystery series, as well as 16 Minnesota authors who will greet readers after Krueger’s 10 a.m. keynote speech. Free. Saturday, Northtown Library, 711 County 10 N.E., Blaine.

(Courtesy of the University of Minnesota Press)

CREATURE NEEDS: Milkweed Books and the University of Minnesota Press present contributors reading from “Creature Needs: Writers Respond to the Science of Animal Conservation,” a new anthology that bridges the worlds of literature and science. Edited by Christopher Kondrich, Lucy Spelman and Susan Tacent, the collection features original works from acclaimed poets and writers. Readers include Claire Wahmanholm, Charles Baxter, Kimberly Blaeser and Sean Hill, after which Wahmanholm will host a panel discussion about craft and art activism for creature conservation. The book is a collaboration with Creature Conserve, a nonprofit started by veterinary zoologist Spelman. Each of the writers was assigned an American animal species whose population is threatened or endangered and provided with a recent journal article that addresses the problems facing their assigned species and the solutions that require more public engagement and support. The contributions are organized into six sections representing six things all creatures need to survive: air, food, water, shelter, room to move and companionship. 6 p.m. Thursday, Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Mpls. Free; attendees are encouraged to register in advance at milkweed.org/events.

COINNEACH MacLEOD: Presents “Hebridean Baker: The Scottish Cookbook.” 7 p.m. Wednesday, Brother Justus Whiskey Co., 3300 Fifth St. N.E., Mpls., presented by Magers & Quinn. $15-$40. Go to magersandquinn.com.

EMILYJ. TAYLOR: Bestselling author who lives in Minneapolis introduces her dark academic fantasy “The Otherwhere Post.” 6 p.m. Wednesday, Red Balloon Bookshop,  891 Grand Ave., St. Paul.

LOGAN TERRET: Arizona-based author introduces his debut mystery, “Agates Are Forever.” 4 p.m. Saturday, Once Upon a Crime, 604 W. 26th St., Mpls.

ROBERT van VLIET: St. Paulite launches his new poetry collection “Vessels,” which resulted from the poet’s challenge to himself during COVID pandemic to build a 10-line poem each day that included five words and a line or fragment from a book, all chosen randomly. In conversation with Minnesota poet Claire Wahmanholm. 6 p.m. Tuesday, Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.

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Early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, the battleship USS Ward was patrolling the waters around the entrance to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

When another American vessel spotted a periscope peeking out of the waves nearby, the Ward and its 115 sailors — at least 85 of whom were St. Paulites — motored over to investigate.

The periscope belonged to a miniature Japanese submarine operated by a two-man crew. When it reappeared, the Ward’s skipper ordered his men to open fire.

Two of the ship’s 4-inch deck guns responded with a volley of explosive shells weighing more than 30 pounds apiece. A round from Gun No. 3 smashed through the mini-sub’s conning tower, sinking the vessel.

The men of the Ward didn’t yet realize it, but they had just fired the first American shots of World War II. Japanese warplanes began bombing Pearl Harbor about an hour later.

“I didn’t know that when we sank that sub, we had started a war,” crew member Bernard Kinderman told the Pioneer Press 35 years later.

The gun that fired that fateful shot is now proudly displayed on the Minnesota State Capitol Mall in St. Paul. But lately it has fallen into disrepair, plagued by rust and peeling paint.

Randal Dietrich, executive director of the Minnesota Military & Veterans Museum, submitted a request in August to the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board to move the gun to his institution at Camp Ripley in Little Falls.

The 49-year-old museum, which will open a new 40,000-square-foot facility in summer 2026, wants to restore Gun No. 3 and house it in a planned World War II gallery, safe from the elements.

“It’s a priceless World War II artifact,” Dietrich said. “I think it’s incumbent upon us to act, to make sure that gun and what it represents is not lost to time.”

The CAAP Board will vote on whether to consider Dietrich’s request at its next meeting on March 24, said Erik Dahl, the board’s executive secretary. Members of the public will then have 30 days to comment on whether the gun should be moved. A final decision from the board is likely sometime this summer.

Seven decades of wear and tear

Members of the crew of the USS Ward pose for a photo with their ship’s battle scoreboard. Bottom row: J.L. Spratt, A.J. Fink, Orville Ethier, C.W. Fenton, D.R. Pepin, Giles Le Clair, F.V. Huges. Top Row: R.B. Nolde, W.G. Grip, H.F. Germarin, H.J. Harris, H.K. Paynter, J.K. Lovsted, W.H. Duval, I.E. Holley, W.S. Lehner, F.J. Bukrey, and F.L. Fratta. All are from St. Paul, except Duval and Holley. (Photo courtesy of the United States Navy)

The gun has been mounted just west of the Veterans Services Building since 1958, when it was loaned to the state by the U.S. Navy at the urging of U.S. Sen. Hubert Humphrey and members of the First Shot Veterans Club, which Kinderman and his Ward shipmates formed after the war.

The 11,000-pound piece of ordnance was carefully strapped into a C-119 “Flying Boxcar” transport plane for the trip to Minnesota from Washington, D.C., where it was on display at the Washington Navy Yard, according to a Pioneer Press article published at the time.

The gun was so heavy that the plane couldn’t carry enough fuel for the whole trip and had to make a pit stop at an Air Force base in Illinois.

All nine members of the crew that operated Gun No. 3 were in attendance when it was unveiled that May.

Ward veterans made annual pilgrimages to the gun on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. Those gatherings became smaller and smaller with the passing decades, until none was known to be left alive.

The years have also taken a toll on the gun itself. The Minnesota Department of Administration, which is responsible for the gun’s maintenance, has no dedicated budget for its upkeep.

The last restoration work the department undertook was in 2020, when it used leftover funds from the renovation of the Capitol to clean and paint the gun, Assistant Commissioner Curtis Yoakum said. But it has already begun to show its age again.

A memo prepared by CAAP Board staffers reported that “exposure to elements will continue to degrade this valued piece of history. The lack of dedicated maintenance funds for an outdoor memorial will inevitably result in continued degradation.”

A new home for Gun No. 3

The gun from the USS Ward needs to be stripped of old paint, have the rust removed and be repainted. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)

Dietrich and his organization have spent several months building their case for removing Gun No. 3 from the Capitol Mall.

In February 2024, the museum hired Paul Storch, a professional objects conservator, to assess its condition. He found the gun was suffering from “continued metal loss and disfigurement,” and recommended it be stored indoors.

Storch was one of several people to speak in favor of advancing Dietrich’s proposal during an initial public comment hearing before the CAAP Board in December. No one spoke in opposition.

To pay for the move, the museum secured a $275,000 grant last year from the Legacy Committee of the Minnesota Legislature. The museum would cover any additional expenses itself.

In addition to seeking the approval of the CAAP Board, Dietrich also had to submit an application to the Navy — which still owns the gun — to have the loan agreement transferred from the state of Minnesota to his museum. This application was recently approved, he said.

The museum is no stranger to acquiring massive pieces of military history and integrating them into its collection. In 2022, it acquired the conning tower and rudder of the USS Minneapolis St. Paul submarine, which will be displayed outside its new facility.

Its plans for the Ward gun call for an ambitious exhibit that tells the story of the men who served on the ship, many of whom have donated artifacts to the museum over the years.

“We’ll be able to experience this gun comfortably in any weather, and be surrounded by the images and voices of the Minnesotans who served aboard the Ward and took that decisive action on Dec. 7,” Dietrich said.

From Minnesota to Oahu

Navy photo of the USS Ward’s Number Three Gun and its crew. They were Minnesota reservists credited with firing the first shot in defense of Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. The gun, displayed for decades on the Minnesota Capitol grounds, may move to a new museum near Little Falls, Minn. (Collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command)

The crew of the Ward comprised primarily Naval reservists from St. Paul, many of whom likely believed a training cruise on the Great Lakes was the closest they would get to the open ocean.

But in late 1940, the secretary of the Navy activated all reserve units and placed them on standby. Soon 85 St. Paulites of the 47th Naval Reserve Division were boarding a train at Union Depot bound for California.

“Hell, I thought when I joined the reserves that I’d be on submarine patrol on the Upper Mississippi,” St. Paulite Basil Grindall told the Pioneer Press in 1986. “Then — bang! — they put us on active duty. If you wanted to see a bunch of men cry, you should have been on that train out of St. Paul.”

Assigned to the Ward, an antique battleship commissioned during the First World War, these Midwesterners struggled to get their sea legs on the voyage from San Francisco to the Hawaiian Island of Oahu, where they were to be stationed at Pearl Harbor.

Richard Thill, who worked in the ship’s galley, remembered having little to do at first.

“We weren’t making any meals because nobody would eat ’em,” Thill said in 2016. “You heaved all over the place.”

After making history at Pearl Harbor that December, the Ward was refitted as a transport ship and saw action across the Pacific Theater, including at Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea.

Some of the St. Paulites of the ship’s original crew were still aboard on the third anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor — Dec. 7, 1944 — when the pilot of a damaged Japanese fighter plane flew directly into her midsection and sank her.

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After 36 years in the wedding cake business, David Mess said he’s honored to be the preferred vendor at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, the downtown Intercontinental Hotel, the University Club on Summit Avenue and other reception sites around St. Paul. What’s a lot less fun? Cracking the ceiling on the price of eggs.

Switching up fixed prices within negotiated contracts isn’t something that happens on the fly, so when the cost of bakery staples like eggs and chocolate goes up, as they both have in recent months, Mess more often than not simply eats the added expense, so to speak. Buffeted by the record high cost of eggs in particular, he finally raised his cake prices on Jan. 1.

“It’s kind of a bummer when you’re a baker,” said Mess, whose long-standing Buttercream Cakes and Desserts business is based on Transfer Road in St. Paul. “All those prices have been pre-determined, so the reception sites, they’re not going to do a surcharge on it.”

“We did do a price adjustment right after New Year’s, and that’s the only thing we can do,” he added. “For vendors like me, and restaurants that are heavy in the breakfast business, it’s kind of a tough one. If the client is spending $900 on a wedding cake, we’re not really in the business of raising the price beyond that. It’s not like ordering two eggs over easy and a side of sausage at a cafe.”

Egg-flation

If there were a word for whiplash related to egg prices, economists, retailers and perhaps most of all consumers would be using it — a lot. Whether or not you’ll find it in the dictionary, egg-flation is real — the national average price of a carton of a dozen large Grade A eggs reached an all-time high in January of $4.95, nearly double what it was a year ago at this time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For business-to-business wholesalers, prices rose to $7.74 per dozen for large, white shell eggs as of Feb. 14, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A whole new era has hatched for grocery shoppers, bakeries, restaurants and others feeling a bit egg-xploited by the rising cost of an American staple. Together with the skyrocketing cost of orange juice, coffee and chocolate — blame a citrus tree disease, hurricanes and other climate impacts — and breakfast is about to get a whole lot more expensive.

The problem?

At least 9% of the U.S. egg-laying flock has been lost to the H5N1 avian influenza virus since its mid-October surge alone, and a major supply state — California — has lost an estimated 90% of its in-state production. The avian flu recently spread into three states that account for as much as one-third of U.S. egg production — Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — and spring waterfowl migrations are just around the corner, threatening to spread the virus to even more farms.

Some predict that egg shortages are likely to get worse before they get better.

“We’re going through one of the worst outbreaks in history, if not the worst outbreak in history,” said Brian Moscogiuri, a vice president with Eggs Unlimited in Irvine, Calif., one of the largest suppliers of eggs in the nation. “Since the middle of October, we lost more than 42 million egg-laying hens.”

No drop in demand

Despite the shortage, there’s been no drop in demand, which has fed into higher pricing. Eggs are what’s known as an “inelastic commodity,” meaning consumers may switch up brands but they’ll continue to buy them when prices surge. If anything, “concerns around shortages have created a little bit of panic buying,” Moscogiuri said.

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At Key’s Cafe and Bakery, co-owner Amy Hunn has responded by dropping key lime pie from her offerings at all nine Twin Cities locations for the time being, given that a batch of pies requires 60 egg yolks. She’s in the process of printing menus with adjusted food prices, and posting a sign in each site’s doorway explaining that each egg will now carry a 50 cent surcharge.

“Our food provider foresees this continuing for the next months, if not going into 2026,” Hunn said. “They do free printing for us and they said, ‘Adjust your prices.’ … It’s not something we want to do, but we have to make sure we’re not putting ourselves in the ground.”

Egg lovers are getting creative. A private company — RentTheChicken.com — offers to connect consumers across the country to suppliers that rent out laying hens and portable coops, with prices ranging from about $500 to $1,000 for a seven-month rental.

Some hoped a shift in the political winds would topple egg-flation, but the avian flu doesn’t care about who you voted for at the ballot. Egg prices have actually spiked rapidly since the November election, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts prices could continue to rise as much as 20% over the course of 2025.

“Your local independent grocers, they’re in the same spot consumers are,” said Minnesota Grocers Association President Patrick Garofalo. “No one is getting rich off this.”

Buying local

Still, some small grocery co-ops say they’ve been able to maintain fairly steady supply and stable pricing by buying local.

Matt Hass, general manager of the Hampden Park Co-op on Raymond Avenue in St. Paul, said the grocery gets its eggs directly from two Midwest sources — Larry Schultz Organic Farm in Owatonna, Minn., and a group called Wisconsin Growers, which is an Amish collective in western Wisconsin.

In addition, the store’s primary distributor supplies eggs from two national operations — the Farmers Hen House, which is cage-free, and Vital Farms, which goes a step further and advertises its eggs as certified humanely raised.

“The supply has impacted the national companies,” Hass said. “It’s a little bit spotty on whether we can get those eggs in on a week-to-week basis. We do get delivery of the local eggs in.”

Those local eggs have not been immune to the laws of supply and demand. About a month ago, Wisconsin Growers raised prices by about 30 cents per dozen eggs. As a result, the Hampden Co-op now sells their eggs for $4.99, instead of $4.49. So far, store management has been able to keep all egg prices below $5, even as some major grocers in the Twin Cities advertise packages for $7 or more.

The eggs that are purchased from a food service distributor and cooked as part of prepared foods at the deli counter are a different story entirely.

“We saw the case price of those just jump astronomically,” Hass said. “We’re just not buying them from our food service distributor anymore. We’re supplementing (the deli) with our local eggs. They’re basically wholesaling at $11 a dozen. I won’t name names.”

Here are a few more things to know about the egg outlook:

How are restaurants and retailers responding to the rising price of eggs?

Around the country, some grocers have taken to rationing their supply or simply maintaining empty shelves. Others use eggs as a loss leader, drawing in customers with lower-than-average prices so they’ll spend money on other goods. Trader Joe’s recently began advertising a carton of eggs for relatively rock-bottom prices, with a sign limiting sales to one carton per person per day. Bulk sellers like Costco and Sam’s Club have set their own limits. Still other retailers simply pass costs directly on to the consumer.

Waffle House, a diner chain with locations in Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and the deep South, has taken to adding a 50 cent-per-egg surcharge to its menu.

In downtown St. Paul, the Skyway Grill burger-and-breakfast counter in the Securian Building food court on Robert Street began advertising a 75 cent-per-egg surcharge on Feb. 13.

Why do egg prices vary so much from brand to brand, store to store and week to week?

The eggs you see on the store shelves are purchased by retailers through a variety of means, from contracts with particular farms or suppliers, to spot markets, where buyers and traders price for immediate delivery. That means the prices retailers pay for their supply will vary based on market conditions — supply and demand — but not every brand will be impacted the same way at the same time.

When it comes to determining what price and costs to pass on to you, the consumer, that’s a whole different animal.

“Each major retailer has different strategies around eggs,” Moscogiuri said. “Some of them may use them as a loss leader. Some of them have lagging price contracts, where they pass along costs more slowly. … There’s varying ways to price: against the market benchmarks, or against long-term moving averages, cost-plus deals, fixed formulas. A lot of that has been negotiated prior to what’s going on here recently.”

Where is the flu prevalent now?

After all but decimating California’s laying hens, the avian flu has found its way to some of the largest egg-supplying states in and around the Midwest, including Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In recent weeks, it’s spread rapidly to commercial layer farms, turkey farms, backyard farms, wild birds, and even in some states to cats and dairy herds, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, or CIDRAP, at the University of Minnesota.

Cattle can be quarantined for a couple of months and eventually recover, but avian influenza is quickly fatal to birds.

“We have a number of flyways that go up and down from the Arctic to the south, to the equator,” said veterinarian and epidemiologist Jeff Bender, director of the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center at the University of Minnesota. “We’ve actually seen it across all the flyways. … Through the work we’ve done, we’ve seen it in wild birds coming through in December in Minnesota. The Mississippi flyway, we had a number of reports of bird die-offs or sick birds, and they tested positive.”

Is this worse than the avian flu outbreak of 2015?

In a word: Yes.

“It absolutely is worse than 2015,” said Abby Schuft, program leader for Agricultural and Natural Resources at University of Minnesota Extension. “In 2015, our outbreak was from March to June, and then it was done in the entire United States. We lost 15.1 million birds. Since February 2022, the outbreak has not stopped in the United States. In total, the USDA reports 121 million domestic birds gone. That’s our chicken and our poultry.”

What preventative measures are farmers taking?

Strict hygiene protocols range from requiring workers to wash their hands and switch their boots more frequently, to isolating birds from areas where they might encounter wild waterfowl.

“There’s going to be a lot of parallels to what people experienced during COVID,” Schuft said. “It’s really difficult to control where wild birds fly, and where they land, but there are certain things we can do to control their lingering on a farm site.”

To scare away unwanted feathered visitors, some farmers have taken to using sound cannons. Minnesota turkey farms have begun experimenting with rotating laser lights.

“The birds see that as a predator, so then they won’t stay and linger for a long time,” Schuft said.

Those and other tactics fall under the general title of “biosecurity,” and commercial poultry represents the first industry to be required by the USDA to maintain biosecurity plans if farmers hope to qualify for indemnity payments.

“Other species may require a plan from the packing plant, but not from the USDA,” Schuft said. “Obviously, it’s not super successful, but without biosecurity we would have way more cases than we already do.”

What else are farmers doing?

When a farm is confirmed to have “highly pathogenic avian influenza,” the USDA requires that all of its birds must be disposed of and the premises emptied for a minimum of 120 days while environmental samples are taken from the floor, walls and equipment.

“Some farms have experienced multiple outbreaks,” Schuft said. “If a premises has a subsequent infection, it’s because there’s been a new introduction source, like waterfowl.”

After that, it can take months for a chick to mature into a growing hen and begin laying eggs, so repopulating lost laying stock is no fast endeavor.

That’s made the avian influenza an especially emotional and financially draining burden for farmers in particular.

“Some of our largest egg producers are in Ohio and Iowa, and they got hit pretty bad,” Bender said. “It takes time for those facilities to come back online. Usually, it’s about five months.”

“The physical, emotional, psychological toll is also quite dramatic, and that’s not just on the individual farmers,” Bender added. “It might be on the whole rural community and the feed industry. We’re talking billions of dollars lost now because of this continued outbreak.”

Does the avian flu present a danger to humans?

Avian flu is still rare, though not unheard of, in humans who likely contracted the virus through direct contact with animals — barn workers, bird hunters and others who encounter wild waterfowl. Experts say infected birds tend to die before they can lay eggs. For the extra cautious, thoroughly cooking eggs until they’re firm, not runny, would guarantee they’re free of pathogens like salmonella.

“Poultry products are still very safe to eat, ensuring poultry meat is cooked to 165 degrees, and that eggs are cooked, as well,” Schuft said.

Otherwise, “eggs are fine,” said Bender. “Probably the biggest risk for dairy farms impacted by influenza is for the workers.”

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