A farm lobby group says if consumers want free-range eggs, they will have to put up with seasonal shortages.

Retailers have suffered a national egg supply shortage in recent weeks.

Australian Egg Farmers Association spokesman John Coward told ABC Rural the shortage was caused by a combination of seasonal pressures, increased consumption and uncertainty over new free-range guidelines, which will come into effect in late 2016.

But Victorian Farmers Federation Egg Group president Brian Ahmed said consumers should be made aware that consumer demand for free-range eggs will make eggs a more seasonal product.

Mr Ahmed said the more free range product on the market, the more likely it was for consumers and retailers to experience egg shortages.

"What's happened over the last few years is the industry has been pushed into free-range systems because of consumer demand," he said.

"If we had [chickens] in controlled environments we would not have had the effect of the winter months."

Mr Ahmed said this egg shortage proved the importance of retaining the three production systems: caged, barn and free-range.

"They all have a benefit and they all offer positive animal welfare benefits when they're managed properly," he said.

"We need all three to make sure we've got continuity of egg supply all year round for the consumer."

Mr Ahmed said there were dangers to creating an entirely free-range egg production system

"If we go all free-range we're very vulnerable to disease and weather conditions and things like that," he said.

"And we will definitely have peaks and troughs in supply."

Claims about free-range 'ridiculous': farmer

But Free Range Farmers Association president Dianne Moore said the claims that free-range production has created shortages were "ridiculous".

Ms Moore, who runs a free range egg farm in Labertouche in eastern Victoria, said she managed her chickens to avoid winter moulting and a drop in production.

"It just doesn't happen like that," she said.

"But we buy and sell our birds so we never have moulting."

Ms Moore said she does not believe that free-range production has caused the egg shortage.

But she said she cannot work out why there is any shortage at all.

"I really don't understand what they are all talking about," she said.