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Full Episode
Last year, on the day before Easter, America's most egg-centric holiday, Greg Herberk lost 70 hens. Now, to lose several chickens on a large-scale farm, not that big a deal, just part of the process, which Greg knows because he's the CEO of the largest egg producer in Michigan and the 10th largest in the country. His family's been in the business for more than three generations.
So Greg knows his chickens. I love talking about my hens. Yeah. Greg has known chickens his entire life.
When I was in college, we had 200,000 hens at that time. And I used to tell my buddies, I said, I know 200,000 chicks, but I only got one phone number.
But losing 70 hens in one day, that was unusual. And then the next day, that number went up.
The next day, that barn was over 700. And the day after that? And that next day, that barn had 10,000 dead. By Thursday, another one of our farms about five miles away went positive. Ugh. And then the following week, our third site in Ionia County was confirmed positive. And so within right around a week, our three large farms in Michigan were all positive.
How many birds did you lose since that Easter Day weekend?
Just in about seven, eight days, six and a half million.
Six and a half million?
Yeah. Wow. It's a fear. But then the reality of it happening, that's I mean, it's just like, oh, my goodness. They're all going to die.
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