cheapest place to get 1/4" welded mesh

[Gazz]

Building an aviary in the garden, and i need to use 1/4 x 1/4 square holes welded mesh (or 6mm for those who went to school after 1980)

cheapest i seem to be able to find it 65 quid, thats for a 30 meter roll of the galvanised stuff, (and 3 foot wide)

Don't suppose anyone knows of anywhere selling 30 meters of this stuff cheaper?

it has to be the 6mm holed stuff, as we have mice around here, and they like to snack on bird food, eggs and possibaly the birds too, so i know this makes it the most expensive of the light weight meshes (due to the metal content i guess)

[Nightjar]

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

[The Other Mike]

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

3/8" or less stops entry of a mouse but a slot 3/8" high and around 1/2 wide won't.

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.

[dennis]

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.

[Gazz]

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 :)

[Nightjar]

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

[Newshound]

Lateral thinking! ROFL!