cheapest place to get 1/4" welded mesh

Are you sure 1/4 inch mesh is adequate? Mice can get through remarkably small holes - they dislocate the plates in their skulls to do so. The Rentokil man who used to come to my factories used a simple test for whether a hole would pass mice - if a BIC biro would go through, so could a mouse.

Colin Bignell

In dislocating the skull plates the head flattens, so a hole of around

Beekeepers fit mouseguards to their hive entrances over winter when bees are less active and less able to defend themselves. The holes are sized as above and they are quite effective but shrews can very occasionally fit through.

I know they can get through 12mm sq mesh, or at least before they have eaten.. I found one stuck half in and half out after it had started eating the rabbit's food. It was dead and I had to snip the wire to extract it. If all mice are like that they wont get through 6 mm sq.

soz, forgot to mention i'll be double meshing the panels, i.e. the frame will be made of 1x2 wood, and each side will have a layer of mesh, placed half a hole space appart, so the mouse would have to be a proper contortionist to get through, or turn it's self into mince meat in doing so.

i'll have a couple of cameras in the aviary set on motion capture, so if any mice do ever get in, i'll replace the birds with an owl for a few weeks, that'll teach the meeces :)

Space the two layers of mesh further apart, to create an inner and an outer aviary, and keep an owl in the outer one. That way, you won't need the expensive small mesh.

Colin Bignell

Lateral thinking! ROFL!