MINNEAPOLIS — Bird flu took a bite out of the turkey supply. Heavy rain washed out the pumpkin crop. Yet Thanksgiving groceries likely won’t cost Americans much more than last year, and nobody should have to miss gobbling down their favorite holiday foods.

The holiday season perennially generates stories about some items being in short supply or dramatically pricier, but markets have a way of balancing themselves out, particularly around this meal.

So even though bird flu wiped out 8 million turkeys — driving production down and wholesale prices up — you’re in no danger of missing out. These birds don’t play by the usual rules of supply and demand. That’s because one of the most effective things grocers can do to lure holiday shoppers is offer cheap turkeys, even selling them at a loss, says Richard Volpe, a professor at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and former retail food price economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And how about those pumpkins? Probably another case of Chicken (or Turkey?) Little. Warnings of pumpkin shortages in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013 never panned out.

Record rains early in the growing season did slash pie-pumpkin yields by about 50 percent in Illinois, by far the country’s top producer. But market leader Libby’s still expects canned pumpkin supplies to last through Thanksgiving and the shortage probably won’t be felt until after the holiday baking season, says company spokesman Roz O’Hearn.