It's not hard to look up the actual stats for Layers, which have a very different lifecycle. It turns out there's slightly over 300 million layers[1] producing

It's not hard to look up the actual stats for Layers, which have a very different lifecycle. It turns out there's slightly over 300 million layers[1] producing at a time, and the expected lifespan is around 4 years of productive laying[2]. In that light, the loss of 58 million chickens to flu is a very different kind of shock. [1] https://unitedegg.com/facts-stats/#:~:text=U.S.%20Egg%20Production%20and%20Hen%20Population&text=The%20U.S.%20had%20308%20million,produces%20300%20eggs%20per%20year https://unitedegg.com/facts-stats/#:~:text=U.S.%20Egg%20Prod.... [2] https://extension.umn.edu/small-scale-poultry/raising-chickens-eggs#:~:text=Egg%20production-,Hens%20begin%20laying%20at%20around%20six%20months%20of%20age%20and,as%20daylight%20hours%20are%20lost https://extension.umn.edu/small-scale-poultry/raising-chicke....