Stupid question-best way to attach hardware cloth

I just put up some hardware cloth the other day. I used some small U shaped staples. Make sure they have good pointy ends. I used a pair of needle nose pliers to hold the staples and used a hammer. The pliers saves the fingers. I wouldn't use the kind of staples that come in the staple guns if you worry about predators. Big coons can pull those right out. Hope this helps.

 

What I did was staple my hardware cloth to the opening...made sure it was abut an inch bigger on all sides...then I took strips of plywood and covered the edges with that and nailed it down on top of the hardware cloth. If your interested I could take a picture of it later this afternoon...my camera is being sent to me (I forgot it at our family reunion) and should be here in the mail today. To make the run bigger, I would use those heavy metal posts you can get a fleet farm and then remember to bury the wire 6-12 inches under ground so nothing can dig under.

 

You can get 'poultry staples' which are u-shaped, like fence staples;
you can use 5/8" stapel gun staples.
Batten boards, already mentioned are good where edges meet and should be fastened with screws in case you have repairs in the future.

It's a good question!

If you follow my home page below to the page on my run, you can see pics of how to attach hardware cloth...

 

The poultry staples work great and they are easy to hammer ( I can't drive a nail longer than an inch and a half to save my life). Another question for all of you, I would like to put hardware cloth on the window to my coop (aluminum framed, think storm window.) How the heck can I attach it? The only thing I've thought of is to staple it to the outside of the coop, but the whold outside of the window has a 'lip' that is meant for vinyl siding to fit into. I can't staple it to the inside because I wouldn't be able to open the window. Any way you can think of to maybe replace the screen with hardware cloth?