I am going to build a new duck habitat to keep my ducks safe and happy. If anyone has any thoughts or advice on my plans, please let me know. Thanks in advance!
Brief background: I live in Hawaii. The main predators are loose dogs, feral pigs, and mongoose. Mongoose are small and evil (yes I know, not really), and an invasive species. I kept my ducks in electronet fence from Premier for 2 years and had no problems, but this week I had 2, 7 week old ducklings killed by mongoose and another one was badly injured. It was horrible and I never want my poor ducks to go through that again. I don’t know if my fence just wasn’t hot enough, or if this particular mongoose would have gone through the fence regardless. But I’m too scared to use electronet fencing now.
I have 29 ducks. I need to make a separate bachelor pen. I can imagine expanding up to 40 ducks in the future.
I’d like my ducks to have as much pasture as possible, and I’d like them to be able to do rotational grazing so they have fresh grass.
This is what I’m thinking right now:
Perimeter fence, 4 ft tall hardware cloth with hot wire above to keep dogs from jumping over. Also at least one hot wire lower to keep pigs from pushing against the fence. I’d also make an apron (1-2 ft?) to keep mongoose from digging in although I don’t think they like to dig far. I will use heavy duty pins to secure all the perimeter fence to the ground.
There would be one gate in the perimeter fence to minimize weakness in the perimeter.
The interior fences wouldn’t need to be quite as secure but I figure the more defense the better. Maybe 1 x 2 inch hardware cloth?
I would move the ducks between the paddocks every few weeks. My bachelor drakes could live in 2-3 of the paddocks and rotate between them.
The access aisle would be a bit of a pain to build because it will require more materials but it will reduce the number of gates I need in the perimeter fence which I think will make it safer. It will also make it easy to move the ducks between paddocks.
Brief background: I live in Hawaii. The main predators are loose dogs, feral pigs, and mongoose. Mongoose are small and evil (yes I know, not really), and an invasive species. I kept my ducks in electronet fence from Premier for 2 years and had no problems, but this week I had 2, 7 week old ducklings killed by mongoose and another one was badly injured. It was horrible and I never want my poor ducks to go through that again. I don’t know if my fence just wasn’t hot enough, or if this particular mongoose would have gone through the fence regardless. But I’m too scared to use electronet fencing now.
I have 29 ducks. I need to make a separate bachelor pen. I can imagine expanding up to 40 ducks in the future.
I’d like my ducks to have as much pasture as possible, and I’d like them to be able to do rotational grazing so they have fresh grass.
This is what I’m thinking right now:
Perimeter fence, 4 ft tall hardware cloth with hot wire above to keep dogs from jumping over. Also at least one hot wire lower to keep pigs from pushing against the fence. I’d also make an apron (1-2 ft?) to keep mongoose from digging in although I don’t think they like to dig far. I will use heavy duty pins to secure all the perimeter fence to the ground.
There would be one gate in the perimeter fence to minimize weakness in the perimeter.
The interior fences wouldn’t need to be quite as secure but I figure the more defense the better. Maybe 1 x 2 inch hardware cloth?
I would move the ducks between the paddocks every few weeks. My bachelor drakes could live in 2-3 of the paddocks and rotate between them.
The access aisle would be a bit of a pain to build because it will require more materials but it will reduce the number of gates I need in the perimeter fence which I think will make it safer. It will also make it easy to move the ducks between paddocks.
