Garden Loft coop plans - do wild birds enter through top?

[Savitar]

We're building a modified version of the Garden Loft coop. The plans show a flat hardware cloth roof/ceiling to the run and coop, with the area above open between the beams. My husband's certain that wild birds will fly in and sit on top, leaving behind droppings. Worried about avian flu, he instead wants to run the hardware cloth up to the beams on the side, and cut out & fit the hardware cloth to the beams on both ends.

Has anyone that's built this coop found that birds get into the flat ceiling area? Or any other maintenance issues, like leaves, etc.?

 

[nuthatched]

It won't hurt to cover the ends instead.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Should be fine to cover vertically rather than horizontally I think? I believe it's set up for horizontal install because then the HWC gets attached to the wood frame at the perimeter of the top, whereas it might be hard to figure out how to secure it to the roof. Might need to do some wrapping around to ensure that all parts of the HWC are attached to wood.