Nigeria is currently facing an imminent and severe egg shortage as the price of day-old chicks has skyrocketed by 67% in just three months. According to investigations by BusinessDay, the cost of a single day-old pullet has surged to N3,000, up from N1,800 in January 2026. This sharp increase is compounded by a chronic scarcity of young laying hens, forcing poultry farmers to wait at least three months to restock their pens. The crisis is largely a “supply-side bottleneck” caused by hatcheries being caught off guard by a sudden resurgence in demand. After the industry suffered massive contractions in 2023 and 2024 due to high feed costs, many farmers who exited the business are now attempting to return simultaneously as maize and soybean prices begin to stabilize.
The structural and economic consequence of this scarcity is rooted in a depleted “parent stock” of birds. During the previous years of economic pressure, breeders and hatcheries failed to restock the grandparent and parent hens used to produce fertile eggs because demand from farmers had hit record lows. Rebuilding this biological infrastructure takes significant time and cannot be bypassed, meaning the current shortage will likely persist for at least one full production cycle. Furthermore, the persistent devaluation of the Naira has made the importation of fertilized eggs for hatching prohibitively expensive, forcing many hatchery owners to scale down their operations exactly when they need to expand.
Analytically, the impact on “National Nutrition and Food Security” is deeply concerning. Eggs have long been the most affordable and primary source of protein for low-income Nigerian households. With prices now climbing out of reach, the country’s per capita daily protein intake already estimated at 45.4g is falling further below the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s minimum recommendation of 53.8g. This widening gap threatens to increase the number of malnourished individuals and derails the government’s “egg-a-day” initiative aimed at improving child nutrition.
The long-term outlook for the poultry sector remains tied to the stabilization of the Naira and the ability of hatcheries to rebuild their breeding stocks. While industry leaders like Sunday Ezeobiora, President of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, believe the sector is “bouncing back,” the transition from restocking chicks to actual egg production remains a slow and costly process. For the average Nigerian consumer, these macroeconomic shifts translate into a continued struggle to afford basic dietary staples, making the recovery of the livestock sub-sector a critical priority for national stability.
