Tigeura
. I read lots of posts, books before we came up with how we will be building the coop. Right now we have a temporary coop off the back of the barn, waiting to remodel a child's wooden play house to hold 20. I found the deep poop decks filled with PDZ cuts way down on the work and smell, the thread about it is under coop mang.,Poop board convert *warning-graphic/gross poop pictures*. There are great pics of the insides of coops there. You do need the 4 square feet per large fowl inside and 10 SQ outside, 5%- or more in the summer- of ventilation, up above the roosts to remove moist air in winter--that causes frostbite-- and at least 2 windows across from each other for cross ventilation for hot humid summer days, screened with HC. NO chicken wire, use heavy gauge Hardware cloth, or hardware cloth backed with another kind of fencing.. Chicken wire is only for between chicken on chicken contact--use it NO where it can be accessed from outside, a raccoon or about anything else will make short work of it. Sand-which the lightest insulation between two solid boards or the chicken will peck it, I am using the solid blue foam kind mostly to keep the roof cooler in summer time--got it free. Roost posts about 4 inches wide, roosts higher than the nests, unless you like poopy eggs. You can use builders sand for your floor and a scooper for the manure, I can't stand the dust so I use the deep litter method, pine flake shavings, leaves etc will all work-no saw dust or cedar shavings. I use plastic waterier so I can add 2 TBS of apple cider vinegar once a week to their water, fresh water daily is a must. Food grade Diamantous earth to the coop floor/nest boxes weekly and sevin dust under the litter every other week, everyday we sprinkle sunflower seeds so the girls turn things under, this winter I'll switch to scratch feed-too warming for summer weather--check out the kitchen trim section-I feed leftovers and peeling of things. There are all sorts of homemade feeders and waterier all over the site, easy to make. I found my tube feeder used on craig's list, great place to buy or find lots of chicken stuff. Do make room for a fan, in the 106* heat with all the open space, frozen treats- we had no deaths, Friends lost a very expensive chicken to the heat. Do not add heat for grown birds, they tolerate winter much easier, as long as there is proper ventilation and no drafts--a handful of scratch throw in a night will help keep them warm--it's like candy so not too much, if you get them used to added heat and your power goes out then you can have a serious problem in freezing temperatures. Read, read--it's helped me a lot--the old timers thread is a excellent source too.
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Knoxville city ordinance says hens only, max 6, lots of rules and regs. I find my duck eggs from my country-dwelling pals 
