We also have two black cats, but one's old and feeble and thinks that the only things edible have to be stuck to the end of mama's finger. (She got that started by feeding him bits of cream cheese off her morning toast years ago.)

The other, curiously, refuses to eat "people food" of any kind, although he does occasionaly play with spiders and snakes. We don't have many of either left since he came a'board.

Both of them are strictly "indoor cats" so unless it gets in the house we won't worry much about what they might get curious about.

The hardware cloth is what's generally recommended for excluding bats in our area, and usually is fine enough here. Note that the 3/8 inch is the spacing of the wires, and once you deduct the wire diameter the actual hole is a little smaller, although not much. Most finer "screening" material can be bitten or clawed through, by bats or by other critters you might want to keep out - for the kinds of critters here.

In this area, the easily available finer "window screen" stuff is all aluminum, and it's hard to find a steel/galvanized screen wire. Copper is also fairly easy to find, but too expensive for most of us now, for any use. Both of those are pretty "soft" and much too easy for bats/mice to chaw a hole through. A few places offer "expanded metal" screening that might be found with slightly smaller holes than the hardware cloth, but availability is "variable" and it's a little more expensive than the hardware cloth.

John