Pomai Brown often collects the brown, green and blue eggs from her 25 chickens with the help of others in her community who occasionally help out around her property, assisting her with caring for the animals in exchange for food. 

Most of the eggs she gives away to friends, neighbors and others in need in Sierra Vista, where she lives. 

She started raising chickens in Hawaii 10 years ago to teach her granddaughter about responsibility and to counter food costs, she said. 

Then, the hobby evolved into a way to help others put food on the table. 

With rising food prices and a scarcity of eggs due to the spread of the bird flu, her role has become even more important, she said.

“I believe the shortage makes people nervous, and now with all of these tax tariffs, people are starting to get worried,” Brown said.

Local backyard chicken ownership is part of a national trend. As of March 2025, there are more than 11 million backyard chickens, a 28% jump from 2023, according to the American Pet Products Association.

In Arizona, some residents are raising chickens to feed their families and reduce grocery bills. 

According to the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, raising backyard chickens offers Arizona residents a rewarding way to contribute to personal food production, support sustainability and engage in local food systems.

Arizona’s backyard chickens

That’s true for Delia Rubio, who lives in Hereford, Ariz.. She has bred chickens for more than a decade and currently has about 24 chickens in her backyard coop. 

She used to primarily give her eggs away to friends and family. Then recently, she learned she might lose her job and began pursuing a longtime dream of selling homemade items such as lotions, soaps and bread and offering eggs to local residents and farmers markets.

“Since I worked full time, I didn’t have time other than on weekends to do the things I wanted to do. Now I might have a lot more time on my hands and may start doing farmers markets,” Rubio said. 

In Tucson, Corina Yeh only recently started keeping chickens. She said it’s one way she is trying to become more self-sufficient, especially with the cost of food rising. 

There were some surprises in her first weeks of raising chickens after adding new hens to her flock, she said.

“They have to establish a pecking order, so I had to supervise them for like a week to make sure they weren’t pecking their feathers out,” she said. 

Now that she has her chicken run established, at the cost of $1,800 for her flock of six hens, she said the only additional cost is maintenance. 

She cooks and bakes with her eggs and gives some to friends, she said. 

Online communities support locals

Brown, Rubio and Yeh are among thousands of backyard chicken owners across Southern Arizona using online platforms to offer surplus eggs to their communities. 

Facebook groups focusing on chickens have become popular spaces for hobbyists to swap fertile eggs, share care tips and connect with other small-scale poultry keepers. 

The groups allow poultry enthusiasts to connect.

 Yeh said that these groups have been handy in teaching her the ropes of poultry handling as a first time owner.

Whether seasoned breeders, new hobbyists or small-scale farmers, backyard chicken owners in Southern Arizona are contributing to a growing local food network, according to the Arizona Department of Agriculture. 

“I don’t just do it for me,” Brown said. “I do it for everybody else, for the community, and they absolutely love it.” 

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.