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  • GRIT Country Skills Series

    BEST CHICKEN BREEDS FOR BACKYARD FLOCKS

    Feb 09, 2018 4 minutes
    By Troy Griepentrog

    Chickens are the perfect starter livestock for your homestead — whether you have a small backyard in an urban area or 20 acres in the boondocks. Chickens provide eggs, meat and fertilizer, plus they’re small and easy to manage. Several breed charts are available online and in books, but their information is often based on old data. So, to get current information, we developed a survey of our readers who have lots of experience with various breeds. (Many thanks to more than 1,000 readers who participated in the survey.)

    The summaries below include only results from people who have more than three years’

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