Eggs are one of those things most of us grab without thinking. You toss a carton in the cart, crack a few into a pan, and never once wonder whether the farm that produced them bothered to follow federal safety rules. But the FDA has been catching egg farms that skipped steps — important ones — and the details are pretty unsettling. We’re talking about farms that didn’t have written plans to prevent Salmonella, farms where dogs were wandering through poultry houses, and processing lines held together with duct tape. These aren’t hypothetical problems. They’re documented violations that put real people at risk.
Two Farms Just Got Official FDA Warning Letters
In March 2026, the FDA issued warning letters to egg farms in Arkansas and Colorado. The specifics of these letters are serious: both farms had problems with Salmonella findings and were missing required prevention plans. These letters don’t arrive casually. The FDA typically gives businesses months — sometimes years — to fix problems before formal warnings go out. So by the time a warning letter lands, the agency has essentially run out of patience. The farms then get just 15 days to respond.
What’s particularly alarming is that some warning letters aren’t posted publicly for weeks or months after they’re sent. That means the eggs from a problem farm could be sitting on store shelves long before anyone outside the FDA knows there’s an issue. It’s a gap in the system that doesn’t get talked about enough.
What North Creek Farm Got Caught Doing Wrong
One of the clearest examples of a farm dropping the ball is North Creek Farm. FDA investigators found that this farm failed to have and implement a written Salmonella Enteritidis Prevention Plan — one of the most fundamental requirements for any egg producer with 3,000 or more laying hens selling to the table market.
This isn’t just a paperwork issue. That prevention plan is supposed to cover how the farm monitors its young chickens (called pullets), how it keeps rodents and pests out, how it cleans and disinfects its poultry houses, and how it keeps eggs cold. Without the plan, there’s no structured way to track whether Salmonella is being controlled. The FDA made it clear: environments that test positive for Salmonella Enteritidis carry a higher probability of producing contaminated eggs. Testing is how farms know if their systems are working. North Creek didn’t have the testing. Didn’t have the plan. Didn’t have the records.
Dogs in the Henhouse and Duct Tape on the Processing Line
If North Creek Farm sounds bad, Rise N’ Shine Farm, Inc. in Calhoun, Georgia was arguably worse. When FDA inspectors showed up in October 2023, they found a farm that hadn’t even bothered to register as a shell egg producer — despite having more than 3,000 laying hens and selling to the commercial market. That registration is required by federal law.
But that was just the beginning. Inspectors found dogs inside the poultry house — a direct violation of biosecurity rules designed to prevent the introduction or spread of Salmonella among the hens. Dogs were also observed in pastures where laying hens had access. On top of that, the FDA collected environmental swab samples and actually detected the presence of Salmonella Enteritidis on the farm.
The processing facility was just as rough. Inspectors documented leftover product grime on the egg candling line, rust near food contact surfaces, egg line brushes that still had residue on them after cleaning, porous wood being used as a brace on part of the processing line, and duct tape used as a repair in areas that come into direct contact with the eggs. The FDA warned that failure to fix these problems could result in seizure, injunction, or administrative enforcement action.
The Rule That’s Supposed to Prevent All This
The Egg Safety Final Rule was designed to prevent roughly 79,000 cases of foodborne illness and 30 deaths every year from Salmonella-contaminated eggs. It went into effect in July 2010 for large farms with 50,000 or more laying hens, and extended to smaller farms (3,000+) by July 2012. The FDA estimated that these preventive measures would reduce Salmonella Enteritidis infections from eggs by nearly 60 percent.
The rules cover the entire chain: monitoring young hens before they start laying, maintaining minimum biosecurity standards, controlling rodents and insects, cleaning and disinfecting poultry houses, refrigerating eggs at 45°F or below on the farm, running environmental monitoring tests, and keeping detailed records of all of it. Every record has to include the farm name and location, the date and time of the activity, and the signature or initials of the person doing the work. It’s not complicated, but it requires consistency and commitment. And when farms skip steps, people get sick.
When Farms Skip Steps, People End Up in the Hospital
In 2024, 65 people across nine states were infected with Salmonella Enteritidis linked to eggs from Milo’s Poultry Farms in Bonduel, Wisconsin. Of those who provided information, 24 were hospitalized. The illnesses stretched from May through August 2024 before the CDC declared the outbreak over in October. Milo’s voluntarily recalled all their eggs, which had been sold under multiple brand names including “Milo’s Poultry Farms,” “Tony’s Fresh Market,” and even duck eggs under the “Happy Quackers Farm” label. FDA inspectors found Salmonella in both the packing facility and the poultry house, and whole genome sequencing confirmed it was the same strain making people sick.
Then in 2025, it happened again. Country Eggs, LLC, out of Lucerne Valley, California, was linked to 105 Salmonella Enteritidis infections across 14 states. There were 18 hospitalizations. The eggs were sold under brand names including Nagatoshi Produce, Misuho, Nijiya Markets, and Country Eggs, distributed through grocery stores and food service distributors in California and Nevada. The FDA found three environmental samples at the facility that matched the outbreak strain. The illnesses ranged from January to August 2025 before the outbreak was declared over in November.
This Problem Has Been Going On for Over a Decade
If you think these recent incidents are outliers, they’re not. Back in 2010, the biggest egg recall in U.S. history pulled more than half a billion eggs off the market after about 1,500 reported cases of Salmonella were linked to two Iowa companies: Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. FDA inspectors found barns infested with flies, maggots, and rodents. Manure pits were overflowing. Wild birds and escaped hens had free run of the facilities. Both companies operated farms housing 7 million hens. Inspectors found Salmonella in chicken feed, in barn areas, and even in the water used to wash eggs at a Hillandale facility.
The aftermath of that disaster was partly what pushed enforcement of the new egg safety rules. But when the FDA conducted its first round of inspections in early 2011, it found that 12 out of 35 large farms inspected had problems requiring corrective action. Most of the citations were for record-keeping failures — not documenting when activities happened, not recording compliance with biosecurity measures, not tracking pest control. Four percent of environmental samples tested positive for Salmonella Enteritidis, all from one company. Inspectors also found failures to control rodents, keep stray animals out of poultry houses, maintain eggs at 45°F or below, and prevent cross-contamination between workers moving between buildings.
Why Warning Letters Are a Bigger Deal Than They Sound
An FDA warning letter might sound like a slap on the wrist, but it actually represents the end of a long line of patience. The agency typically identifies problems during inspections, gives the farm time to fix them, follows up, and only issues a formal warning letter when the problems persist. By the time a letter is sent, the FDA has documentation showing a pattern of noncompliance. These letters are also public records — they become part of a company’s permanent compliance history, which can affect future inspections, enforcement priority, and business relationships.
The consequences for ignoring a warning letter can be severe: product seizure, court-ordered injunctions that can shut down operations, and administrative enforcement proceedings. For a small farm, any one of those outcomes could mean the end of the business.
What This Means for You at the Grocery Store
The frustrating truth is that there’s no way to look at a carton of eggs in the store and know whether the farm that produced them is following FDA safety rules. Labels like “cage-free” or “pasture-raised” don’t tell you anything about Salmonella prevention. The Country Eggs outbreak involved cage-free eggs. The Rise N’ Shine violations were at a farm with pasture access for hens.
What you can do: Cook eggs thoroughly. Keep them refrigerated. Pay attention to recall notices — check the FDA’s website if you hear about an outbreak. And if you buy from a local farm at a farmers market, don’t assume smaller means safer. The FDA’s rules apply to any producer with 3,000 or more laying hens, and as these warning letters show, not everyone follows them.
The egg safety system works when farms actually follow it. The problem is that some don’t, and by the time the FDA catches up with them, people have already gotten sick. That’s not a flaw in the rules — it’s a flaw in enforcement capacity. With hundreds of egg farms across the country, the FDA can only inspect so many each year. The ones that get caught are probably not the only ones cutting corners.
