I am a freshmen engineering student and need help. My semester project
is to design a chicken coop. I'll admit it...I don't know anthing about
chickens. My limits are that it has to be easy to clean, not too exspensive,
and it has to be efficient. I am allowed an area of 12 feet by 12 feet.
What do chickens like? Do chickens make their own nests? Can I have shelves
for nesting high of the ground?
All info and suggestions are appreciated!!!
Thanks!
Jason

how about a concrete floor. with nest boxes and roosts. Electicity. easy access for the owner and the animals. Including young poultry. Windows that have shutter like openings, with plexiglass for the winter. Varmint proof, and easy to clean, think of the four seasons. Ps If you made a book with plans of different kinds of coops. it would be a pretty good seller. I would really think of purchasing one.

There are numerous discussions of coop design and utilization here on the coop if you use the keyword function on the left to look for them. Lots of people would be happy to answer any questions as the design process unfolds.
Consider designing the building so that it can be easily reached from the outside for cleaning, egg gathering, feed storage, etc. This would maximize the floor space available for the birds. They should have four square feet of floor space per bird when they are confined. Ventilation and eliminating drafts is important, but chickens don't take the cold very well, so insulation and keeping warm is important. Building so that predators large or small cannot get in is important. Weasels can get through a space not much bigger than your thumb, so hardware cloth is better than chicken wire for security. We use a roost "hood" over the roost area to keep the chickens' own body heat around them at night when they are on the roost. Most of the waste is excreted while on the roost at night, so waste collection under the roost area reduces the labor needed to keep odors down in the building.
Nest boxes (various discussions on the Coop, also) should be private, darkened, and separated, with front retainers high enough to keep your bedding in the nest, but designed so they can be cleaned out easily. Metal nest boxes are attached only at the top, so the bottom can be pulled away from the wall and the contents dumped when they get dirty.
Dust and dander is a problem in all chicken operations. I don't know how to tell you to handle this problem, but if you find a way, I'd like to know.
Send more questions, and lots of folks will probably help you out. It would be nice if you would post a picture of your project here when you are done, if you can. Good luck!