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:thumbsup A very good idea. The more flexibility the better.

P.S. The ultimate proof of adequate ventilation is that the temperature and humidity are the same inside and outside. :)

He probably knows exactly what's needed then. :) No, I can't tell. The usual guideline is to have 1 square foot of ventilation per adult, standard-sized hen, best located above the birds' heads when they're sitting on the roost. You want the airflow to look like this: Those little...

Personally, I like barn paint. It's made to go on rough wood without primer. But the color choices are limited.

Personally, I wouldn't put plastic down because it traps moisture that encourages mold and will eventually rot the wood of the floor.

In my only coop with a floor I use Deep Bedding over the bare plywood: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/using-deep-bedding-in-a-small-coop.76343/ But many people do put something like sheet vinyl down or use floor paint.

Wet cleaning could just make the problem worse because the same poor airflow that allowed the coop to stay damp and grow mold in the first place won't let it dry out after cleaning. If you were completely removing the birds so that you could make alterations to the coop that would be...

You want to put in a thick layer of dry organic material and then improve your ventilation so that it stays dry and thus dehydrates the poop rapidly. If you can't add lots of bedding and more ventilation then you're going to have to clean more often.

IIRC, ducks have the same space requirements as chickens except that they don't roost. Are you going to house them in the same space or have 2 separated spaces under one roof? 17 birds would need about 68 square feet of floor space so an 8x8 shed would be just a little tight and an 8x10 shed...

Which will turn structural lumber into Swiss cheese.

A 1" round hole isn't even 1 square inch of ventilation. Chicken coops need square FEET of ventilation, not square inches. Sawing out pieces of siding would be more beneficial. :)

If you're talking ventilation, you need square feet, not square inches. :) 1 square foot is 1 foot wide and 1 foot tall. Or 2 feet wide and 6 inches tall. Or 4 feet wide and 3 inches tall. Or a triangle under your gable peak that is 2 feet wide at the bottom and one foot tall.

It's not going to be fun no matter how you do it. I've never had to, but with both chickens and cockatiels the method I've read about is to grasp the feather stub firmly with needlenose pliers, put your other hand on the skin close to the base of the feather to support it so that it doesn't...

If the feather stub is still there you need to pull it out in order to get the feather's blood supply to close off. Otherwise it's going to keep bleeding at least intermittently.

I wonder if you could pull the top board off and remount it like a little awning -- allowing a lot more airflow than a few little holes could provide?

If chicken wire is what you've got then chicken wire is what you've got. It's not strong against dogs, coyotes, or raccoons, but you're in an unusual situation.

The standard answer is hardware cloth. Someone above mentioned metal lathe. 2x4 wire plus 1" chicken wire can work. I had my non-predator-proof builds last summer inside an electric fence. What do you have available?

Can you achieve some approximation of 4x8? My brooder would hold 8 adult hens: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/run-to-outdoor-brooder-conversion.76634/

So definitely nothing lightweight or jury-rigged. Which throws out one of my possible suggestions. Cattle-panel hoop coops are wind resistant when correctly oriented so that the wind flows over the curve rather than against the end and they'll take a fair amount of snow load. If you can only...

That's probably it then. I'm working on an article on chickens' space needs and one of the exceptions for the case of crowding creating problems is a flock that free ranges pretty much every daylight hour every day of the year. I guess you get a lot of wind if your old coop was blown over, so...