Ron and Moosha make valid points. Location is an important factor to consider in building your coop. Local predators are a concern, as is the local weather. We live in a cold winter area, therefore I chose to heat my coop in various ways. (as cheaply as possible,or free when it's sunny!) Flooring is important as well. Some choose to use litter, (hay, straw, wood shavings, etc.) and others choose to keep it clean daily. I use plastic covered collectors under their roosts to save most of it to bag up and give to friends for fertilizer and I have thick plastic flooring that gets scraped and cleaned easily. All my girls, (and the roo) are fat and sassy and healthy. I also feed them kefir grains every few days, as well as egg and oatmeal "omelets". (older eggs, tossed into blender, shells and all, then added to oatmeal and hot water.) 14 probiotics in the kefir keep their immune systems quite healthy. (and ours as well!) As with any project though, you need to start from the ground up, so consider your foundation and flooring first. What is it going to sit on? If it's dirt, you'd want ground contact boards to start it. If concrete, treated is okay. There IS a difference!! If it's tornado alley in your neck of the woods, you might want to consider a pole barn type construction to lock it to the ground. The more details you can provide, the better we might be able to assist you.
