[smartorl]

The main problem I see with chicken wire, even the smaller mesh is that the wire is so fine and it is very easy for an animal to stretch the opening and possibly choke themselves. Every so often, you hear of it happening. Hardware cloth is also very fine and can be used however, spend the extra for galvanized wire, ungalvanized, which is not dipped and sealed, can come apart at the weld points and can also give enough to allow a persistant head to get through and get hung up. I lost a rabbit in a run made of ungalvanized hardware cloth. I thought I was using the best option but found out differently. In my current runs I use, metal lath, which is used in tile setting. It is very strong, won't give or bend, and will last forever with no rusting or corroding. The downside to it is it is very sharp on the edges (as is most wire though) and I did invest in some wire covers that are like the ends you put on school reports to slip over all exposed edges which are all on the outside of the run. I love the stuff in spite of it being a little more expensive. I had the pigs out in the run, ran inside because the washer was off balance and there were two huge dogs tearing at my run but unable to get in, that superstrong wire was worth every cent to me then!