Learn How to Raise Healthy Chickens at Your Backyard When starting a backyard chicken coop, one of the first decisions you'll have to make is which breed of chicken you will raise. Each breed has specific characteristics and can be used for different purposes. In general, though, chicken breeds break down into three groups: egg layers, meat chickens, and dual-purpose chickens. Egg layers produce both a nice quantity and quality of egg. Egg...