It would be easy to weld some expanded metal into those positions. We built these based on others that we had seen. In the 5 years that I have had my other CUT with grill guard, I have never had anything small poke into the openings. Usually, with the FEL on the tractor, that blocks anything small from getting to the tractor. My experience is that something falls backward out of the bucket (when raised) toward the tractor or, if you are piling materials, something roles down the pile toward the tractor and hits the guard. As I said, it would be easy to add. For what I do with my tractor, I have not seen the need for it.