in hopes of easing all-time high prices for the American consumer, officials confirmed.

"We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters at the White House.

It follows the administration's announcement of a USD 1 billion (£792m) plan to combat a raging bird flu epidemic that has forced US farmers to cull tens of millions of chickens.

Despite President Trump's campaign promise to reduce prices, the cost of eggs has surged more than 65 percent over the past year, and it is projected to rise by 41 percent in 2025.

Rollins said her department was also in talks with other countries to secure new supplies, but did not specify which regions.

"When our chicken populations are repopulated and we've got a full egg laying industry going again, hopefully in a couple of months, we then shift back to our internal egg layers and move those eggs out onto the shelf, " she said.

Polish and Lithuanian poultry associations said on Friday they had also been approached by US embassies regarding possible egg exports, the AFP reported.

"Back in February, the American embassy in Warsaw asked our organisation whether Poland would be interested in exporting eggs to the US market," Katarzyna Gawronska, director of the National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers, told the news agency. (BBC/Getty Images)