Egg production on New York farms totaled 98 million eggs in March 2008, up 5 percent from last year, according to Stephen Ropel, Director of USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, New York office.

 The number of hens and pullets of laying age, at 4.01 million, increased 5 percent from March 2007 and the rate of lay increased 1 percent to 2,446 eggs per 100 layers.

 A dozen eggs brought New York poultry farmers an average of $1.31 for eggs sold in March, up 6 cents from February and up 58 cents from March 2007.

 U.S. egg production totaled 7.68 billion during March 2008, down 2 percent from last year. Production included 6.53 billion table eggs, and 1.15 billion hatching eggs, of which 1.08 billion were broiler-type and 67
million were egg-type. The total number of layers during March 2008
averaged 342 million, down 2 percent from last year.  March egg production
per 100 layers was 2,244 eggs, up slightly from March 2007.

 U.S. Egg-type chicks hatched during March 2008 totaled 39.5 million, up 3 percent from March 2007. Eggs in incubators totaled 37.6 million on April 1, 2008, down 2 percent from a year ago. The information in this release is
available by free email subscription by subscribing to New York reports at
www.nass.usda.gov/ny.