But perhaps the biggest difference is that egg farms in Canada are much smaller, so when one farm does suffer a flu outbreak, the effects are less far-reaching. The typical egg farm in Canada has about 25,000 laying hens, whereas many farms in the U.S. have well over a million. In effect, American farmers have put a lot more of their eggs in a relatively small number of baskets.

“If individual farms represent a larger proportion of production, then when an individual farm is affected, you’re taking more of that supply, right?” von Massow says.