fencing for ducks

[LADYBUG1]

We have 2 portable pens. One is for the chickens and one for the ducks. We put chicken wire on the first pen and then decided it was not protective enough so on the second pen we put hardware cloth which is much stronger. A couple of night ago I went out to check on them and there was a huge raccone in the front yard eating the outside cat food. I decided leaving cat food out at night for the stay cats had to stop. We then put stronger hardware cloth on the one pen we made with just chicken wire. Now my question is do we still leave the pens with chicken wire on the bottoms or should we also put heavier wire on the bottoms. They sit flat on the ground.

 

[Amiga]

That's a tough call, since the chicken wire underneath would be more difficult, since a raccoon would be digging under and then reaching up. Still, since they will pull a bird piece by piece through chicken wire, I decided to put half inch hardware cloth underneath the night pen.

For the day yard, I have coated chain link underneath, since dogs and coyotes would be most likely to dig, and I will be placing 2"x4" coated woven wire fence across the top in case of foxes.

 

[HottentotTeal]

I would recommend some smaller wire as well for the chickens.

I used 1/2" galvanized welded wire coated with PVC.

It's very sturdy so far.

 

[katharinad]

I would buy an electric fence charger and add that near the bottom of the fence. You will need to keep the grass really low so you can have the first wire really low. A friend of mine did that with her dig out dogs and it worked well. You don't even need a strong charge so you can do the upgrade under 40 dollars complete.