Wire guage?

[Alisaviola]

I live in the country with lots of critters that wonder at night. I am building a pen for my girls, can anyone tell me if 23 guage hardwear cloth would be too light. Trying to save a little money but I dont want my girls to be in danger. Of couse I have intercom and cameras on them all the time. But still, 19 guage is better but is it that much better.

 

[Molpet]

23 gauge plastic coated, one year old. My neighbors deck the Trappers installed to keep the coons out. They went though it.

I have 19 gauge 1/2" and have coon prints but so far no breaches

 

[aart]

I live in the country with lots of critters that wonder at night. I am building a pen for my girls, can anyone tell me if 23 guage hardwear cloth would be too light. Trying to save a little money but I dont want my girls to be in danger. Of couse I have intercom and cameras on them all the time. But still, 19 guage is better but is it that much better.

Typically 1/4" HC is 23ga and 1/2" HC is 19ga....I'd go for the 1/2" 19ga.
It still is not impenetrable, especially if it is not installed well.

 

[blackdog043]

Another vote for 1/2" 19ga, it's worth the extra money IMO. Check Amazon and walmart.com, they usually have better prices than big box stores.

I used 3 rolls, 48" x 50' for my run, apron and any coop openings.

 

[Shezadandy]

Yes, 19 gauge IS that much better. As others have suggested, Amazon is the place to look. Look at several and do the math to make sure you're getting the best price per foot. Always make sure hardware cloth is framed onto something, like a picture frame with at least 2x3's on each side.

If you're going to sink it into the ground:

Buy "hog panels" (shorter) or "cattle panels" (taller) - these can be found at farm supply stores for $20-30 for a 16ft section. These are 9 gauge galvanized. If you have a regular bed pickup, they are easily bowed to fit in the bed.

https://www.farmstore.com/product/hog-panel-16-ft

What we did is dug a trench, then tied 2 hog panels together, offset so each square was half the size. If they need to be cut, you will need bolt cutters. Then we secured the hardware cloth to the hog panels. Awesome stuff, especially if you have critters that want to dig their way in.

 

[waywind]

I live in a suburb area with a lot of foxes. One of my friend's chicken coop got busted in by a fox, they only used medium duty chicken mesh.

I've used 1mm thick wire (18 gauge american term I think) with 25cm square holes. So far so good. I think I read somewhere that some vicious foxes can actually chew through wire less than 1mm dia, which is how I ended up going this route.