FOR newly hatched chicken enthusiasts, the first egg from your own hens is a small miracle. “You want to dip it in gold,” said the writer Susan Orlean, who keeps nine hens at her home in Columbia County, N.Y.

Then comes the second egg: enough for a triumphant breakfast.

But when the whole coop starts laying, she said, the supply of eggs quickly turns into an “I Love Lucy”-style conveyor belt scene, bringing absurd, unmanageable excess. Ms. Orlean scrambles them into a pile for brunch or dinner, sprinkled with Indian spices, slivered almonds and unsweetened coconut. “People will eat three and four eggs at a time that way, without blinking,” she said.

It’s not unusual for food lovers to toy with the notion of adding chickens to a thriving garden or building a rooftop coop. Now the novelty has become reality: despite coyotes, foxes and the occasional cage-break, many urbanites and suburbanites are raising their own eggs.

And many small farmers who supply restaurants with produce have been expanding into poultry, making farm eggs ubiquitous on restaurant menus. The eggs that were once scrubbed from the standard American breakfast over concerns about cholesterol have made a triumphant return as high-end appetizers, served atop anything and everything.