New to ducks/first post/ housing/predators???

[mominoz]

Hi, I had chickens and geese about 10 years ago. Now I just ordered 5 bantaam ducks (appleyards and silkies) and 5 runners. And I will be getting 4 geese 3/31. Yipes ! Got to get started on their houses and shelters.
I was going to keep the runners and geese (tufted buffs) together (hopefully), with a night house/shelter and have either a moveable electric net for daytime grazing. Or cut sections of fence with poles to move around to let them graze lawn sections, while I am fieldfencing part of our property around the house area(where they could graze on lawn).
I plan on giving the minis their own secure house/ or maybe a mini aviary/garden with fence on 6 sides and a secondary fence to keep larger predators further away fromthe aviary/pen.
We touch a Nat.l Forest.We have every predator imaginable in NW GA. winged and fourfooted. Along with loose neighbor dogs.
I lost chickens and geese before to possum and raccoon.Our terriers have their own dogyard, off the back door prevent them from becoming "coyote cookies".
I am thinking of either adding a lean-to house onto our horsebarn side for the geese/runner night pen. Or we have a "portable garage" we were going to put up and instead use it for the structure, fence it all around, then put the roof tarp on and maybe side tarps over the fence and divide it up half for the geese/runners and maybe put the miniducks house/pen in the other half. It is 12 X20 steel structure with tarp sides, etc.
Would 2"X4 "dog/horse wire be enough protection for the geese/runner night pen?(roofed of course and underneath?), and if I put that around the miniduck yard what other kind of wire would I need to protect them (roofed and bottomed of course). I also may put some hotwire around the outside perimeter.?
Course the babies will live in the garage at first.
Gee, been reading like crazy on this site, glad I found it.

 

[AhBee01]

I went with hardware cloth. I heard a coon would reach through and kill a duck or chicken right through the fence. So went with a fence size nothing could reach through. so we do not have to lock them up at night in their coop.
On our chicken run, I did the bottom 3 feet in hardware cloth and the rest in chicken wire. It is a covered run. It has worked well for us, but I'm sure a bear would rip right through it! Glad we do not have bears here.
Do have coyotes, fox, raccoons, possum, mink, and weasels.

 

[Dances with Ducks]

Sounds like you are in a beautiful location! But a lot to consider with predators.
I second the hardware cloth around the lower three feet of the pen, and your ideas with the electric fencing. Chicken wire will not keep out racoons, so they must be in a safe building at night.
There is section on the index page for predators, do a search for all the different kinds you may be dealing with.
Good luck with your new birds, and keep checking in!