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The South African Poultry Association says it experienced a difficult December 2022, as demand for chicken during the festive season was very high, particularly because of the high number of public holidays.
SAPA's General Manager: Broilers, Izaak Breitenbach told Algoa FM News that on top of that, load shedding was implemented during the same period.
He says this has led to the culling of millions of chickens because loadshedding simply makes it impossible to operate profitably.
Breitenbach says, however, there is currently no shortage of chickens in South Africa.
He says between December and January, producers have started to reduce the placement of new day-old chicks in order to slaughter the backlog.
Meanwhile, SAPA's General Manager, Dr Abongile Balarane says the recently announced 18.65% tariff increase for Eskom will add more pressure on the country's egg producers, which may result in an increase in the price of eggs.
He says the costs of feed, fuel, and electricity account for about 75% of the total production costs to the farmer.
He says the added burden of increasingly unreliable electricity supply results in additional production costs and outages are a serious threat to the chicken’s wellbeing, as well as adding to the cost of packing eggs to the required legislation.
