Cal-Maine Foods Inc., the biggest egg producer in the US, has culled roughly 3.6% of its flock after birds at a Texas facility tested positive for avian flu, adding to concerns over a widening outbreak.
Nearly 1.6 million laying hens and 337,000 pullets were destroyed and production at the Parmer County plant has temporarily ceased, the company said in a statement. Shares of the producer plunged as much as 6.1%, the biggest intraday decline since October, before erasing declines.
That’s the biggest bird flu casualty in the US since Dec. 7, when 2.6 million birds