ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Monica Salazar has raised chickens in her back yard for almost 20 years.

“I don’t know what a store-bought egg tastes like, because it’s been so long,” she said.

Salazar said she didn’t want eggs from large-scale hatcheries after seeing how they were raised.

“There’s no comparison,” she said. “And then the color and the richness of the yolk and then the thickness of the egg whites, I just can’t say enough.”

And now she’s even happier to have her own egg supply. The ongoing nationwide bird flu outbreak has already wiped out thousands of chickens, and caused egg prices to skyrocket with no end in sight.

Now the New Mexico Department of Agriculture confirmed a backyard coop in Bernalillo County had almost 50 infected birds, including chickens, ducks and geese. All those birds have died.

Salazar said she’s never had an outbreak in her coop.

“But I just think that as long as you cleaning this, you know, as long as you keep everything clean, your chickens have fresh water, their environment inside the chicken coop, you let them out, they get sunlight, fresh air,” Salazar said.

The infected coop was quarantined and the NMDA confirmed that it was non-commercial.

The shortage has had a lot of people wanting to raise their own chickens. But before the chicken or the eggs, there’s hard work.

“I have to compost a lot of stuff, because you will have, you know, chicken poop, you know, that you and I make in the straw, and then I add that into my composting bins, along with leaves and grass,” Salazar said.

She also cleans the dropping and changes the water daily, and employs Tally the guard dog to keep her chickens safe.

“She protects them from raccoons and squirrels and skunk,” Salazar said.

Salazar said she encourages people to get their own chickens but said just be prepared to work for those precious eggs.

“It’s a lot of fun,” she said. “And like I said, it’s a lot of work.”