Russia’s poultry sector was once one of the fastest‑growing in the world, with modern farms supplying both domestic and export markets. However, in just a few years, the industry has plunged into a severe crisis. Between 2022 and 2025, hundreds of farms shut down, total production declined, and thousands of birds were destroyed—not only due to disease but also because farms could no longer afford to feed them.
The collapse has been fueled by several interconnected problems: skyrocketing feed prices, sanctions that disrupted imports of key additives and vaccines, labor shortages due to military mobilization, and repeated avian influenza outbreaks. What makes this crisis worse is that farmers are not just losing money—they are being forced to cull or abandon birds, raising serious animal welfare concerns.
🐣 2. Bird Flu and Mass Culling: The Final Straw
From 2022 through 2025, Russia endured dozens of avian influenza outbreaks, with 45 confirmed in 2023 alone, many on commercial farms.
One severe outbreak at the Romanovkiy farm in Yaroslavl Oblast led authorities to cull 800,000 broiler chickens . Over three years, these outbreaks inflicted over ₽4.5 billion (≈ US$45 million) in direct losses .
Rising mortality rates, combined with skyrocketing animal welfare concerns, have put immense pressure on an already collapsing industry.
📈 Financial Losses That Farmers Couldn’t Absorb
For most Russian poultry producers, profit margins turned negative between 2022 and 2024. The cost of grain, soymeal, and feed additives skyrocketed—grain prices rose nearly 40%, while essential vitamins and amino acids increased by over 200%. Feed makes up 60–70% of poultry production costs, so these increases made farming unprofitable.
Small and medium farms were hit the hardest. Many could not afford to upgrade equipment or pay rising energy costs. Even large integrators that previously made profits of over 25% per batch saw their margins drop to negative 15–20%.
Without affordable credit or government subsidies to offset costs, farms began slaughtering birds early, reducing flock sizes, or abandoning operations completely.
📉 3. Welfare Red Flags: Why Mass Mortality Isn’t Just Economic
Beyond financial loss, the culling of birds en masse has raised serious animal welfare questions:
- Farms report staggering mortality due to starvation or underfeeding—e.g., at Krasnodar farms, flocks turned cannibalistic due to extreme feed shortages, leading to mass destruction
- Conditions bordering cruelty: hens abandoned in pens, dying from hunger or aggression—clear evidence that welfare was sacrificed in the financial meltdown.
- Sanctions and supply disruptions further inhibited vaccine availability and biosecurity protocols, compounding the welfare crisis.
💰 4. Prices Soar Amid Supply Collapse
- In mid‑2023, wholesale broiler prices jumped by 15–20%, with retail prices increasing by up to 48% year-on-year in many regions .
- Consumer pain: egg shortages and “eggflation” became headlines in early 2024, with many households complaining about skyrocketing prices
- Although retail prices briefly stabilized or fell slightly by late 2024, production volumes dropped, indicating weak supply despite higher prices
⚙️ 5. Root Causes: Feed, Sanctions & Labor Shortages
📉 Rising Input Prices
Sanctions on Russia disrupted supply chains for feed additives, machinery parts, and vaccine ingredients—forcing farms to use more expensive or lower-quality inputs.
👷 Labor Shortages
With a significant portion of the workforce mobilized for military service, farms suffered crippling labor gaps, leading to operational failures and neglect.
🥚 Breeding Stock Decline
Import-restrictions caused a 60% drop in imported hatching eggs between 2021 and 2023, crippling replenishment of high-yield breeding lines .
🛑 6. Mass Culling and Flock Collapse: When Financial Losses Turn Deadly
As financial pressure mounted, farms began liquidating flocks to stay afloat:
- In Krasnodar Krai, 150,000 hens were destroyed due to feed shortages and farm asset seizures .
- In Udmurtia, thousands of dead hens were dumped publicly after starvation or conflict among birds on unfed farms .
- Some farms couldn’t afford feeding, leading to mass mortality—not from disease, but neglect due to insolvency.
Such humanitarian and welfare crises attract scrutiny from consumer groups, regulators, and animal rights advocates.
🛑 Flock Liquidation: When Farming Stops Being Possible
As losses mounted, some farms decided to liquidate their entire flocks.
- In Krasnodar Krai, 150,000 hens were destroyed when feed supplies ran out.
- In Udmurtia, starving birds were left to die in abandoned barns, creating disturbing scenes of animal suffering.
- Farms that could no longer sell their meat or eggs due to transport costs simply culled animals to reduce financial bleeding.
This wave of flock liquidation is a red flag for the entire Russian agricultural sector, showing how fragile intensive farming becomes when economic shocks occur.
💬 7. Industry & Government Responses
🔄 Export Controls
In May 2024, authorities briefly banned export of chicken meat, aiming to stabilize domestic prices after rapid inflation .
💵 Financial Support
State programs promised to reimburse 25% of capital costs for hatcheries and offer low-interest loans to struggling farms .
🧪 Boosting Vaccination Campaigns
Animal health bodies urged broader avian flu vaccination for backyard and commercial flocks, although some export partners resist imported vaccine certificates.
📊 8. Economic Fallout and Future Uncertainties
📦 Overcapacity and Egg Surplus
Despite collapsing prices, overproduction created a paradox: in early 2025, Russia produced 6.1% more eggs than in 2024, worsening oversupply and further depressing prices.
👥 Profit Margins Devastated
Large egg producers that earned Rub 179 million up to 2023 saw margins slide from +25% to –17% during 2022–2023, as costs spiraled out of control .
🏭 Farm Consolidation
From 5,650 poultry farms in 2022 to 4,900 in 2024—a 13% decline. Smaller farms are exiting the sector due to insolvency.
🐓 9. Welfare Implications: When Financial Collapse Equals Suffering
With feed costs unaffordable, animal suffering increased dramatically:
- Flocks left unfed, leading to starvation, aggression, and cannibalism among hens .
- Without access to vaccines or proper feed additives, biosecurity collapsed, exacerbating disease spread and mortality.
- Farm closures and culling events pose ethical and public perception challenges, raising concern among NGOs and consumers about farm transparency and treatment of animals.
🔮 What the Future Holds
Russia’s poultry sector may recover partially if feed prices stabilize and export markets reopen. However, experts warn that continued sanctions, rising input costs, and outdated infrastructure could prevent full recovery.
Some predict that smaller farms will disappear completely, leaving only a few large companies to dominate the industry. This may lead to less competition, higher prices for consumers, and weaker animal welfare protections.
🐓 The Human and Ethical Cost
The crisis has sparked debates about animal welfare in industrial farming. When profitability collapses, animals become the first victims. Farmers struggling to survive made desperate decisions—some humane, some not.
Images of starving birds and piles of carcasses have shocked the public. NGOs have called for stricter animal welfare laws and emergency feed programs to prevent unnecessary suffering.
This crisis highlights a global issue: factory farming is extremely vulnerable to financial and supply chain shocks. When costs rise beyond profits, mass culling and animal suffering follow.
🧠 Final Thoughts: Russia’s Poultry Disaster Is Systemic
Russia's poultry sector is in crisis due to a combination of soaring feed costs, supply chain sanctions, labor shortages, and repeated avian flu outbreaks. The industry now faces a dual crisis: massive financial erosion and severe animal welfare breakdown.
Any recovery will require:
- Stabilising feed supply and prices
- Improving biosecurity and vaccination programs
- Backing farmers with financial aid and restructuring loans
- Setting minimum production standards to prevent neglect-driven mortality
Without coordinated action, Russia’s poultry industry risks irreversible damage to both livelihoods and animal welfare.
❓ FAQs
Q1: Has Russia declared a national poultry crisis?
A: Not officially, but multiple industry reports confirm sustained financial loss and mass flock destruction across key regions.Q2: Why are farmers destroying healthy birds?
A: Without feed or ability to sell, farms opted to cull or abandon birds to reduce costs and preserve limited resources before collapse.Q3: Is avian flu the main cause?
A: It was a trigger—but underlying economic pressures made farms unable to withstand repeated disease events.Q4: Are imports helping stabilize supply?
A: Import restrictions on vaccines, feed, and equipment have worsened the crisis, not helped—it is partially self-created by sanctions.Q5: What’s the outlook for recovery?
A: Only with meaningful government support, sanitized credit, supply chain fixes, and welfare oversight can the industry begin repairing production and reputation.Q6: Why are Russian farmers killing healthy chickens?
A: Because feeding and maintaining flocks became more expensive than their market value, leading farms to cull birds to avoid deeper losses.