Every Pekin escape starts at ground level
A Pekin leaves through the bottom of a fence, so spend your whole check on your knees and at the lowest foot of the run. What a Pekin can do is lean. A bird resting its weight against a tired board, pushing through a gap after spilled feed, or barging past flockmates at the gate applies steady force for hours, and fixings that survive a quick human tug often creep out slowly under that kind of pressure.
Shove-test every lower board and mesh panel from inside the run with your shoulder, not your fingertips. Check the fasteners themselves as well: Pekin runs are wet places, and screws and staples in permanently damp timber corrode and loosen faster than in a dry chicken run, so a panel can look sound while held by almost nothing.
Mud, pools and the dips a Pekin belly slides through
Water management is fence management in a Pekin pen, because this breed splashes constantly and turns the ground along a fence line into soup. Walk the line after the ducks have used their pool, not before, and look for the shallow saucers that form where birds climb out, shake off, and dabble at the mesh. A dip of only a few inches under the bottom wire is enough: a Pekin lies down, pushes with its feet, and slides its deep keel under an edge that a standing bird could never pass.
Reposition pools, drinkers, and feeders away from the boundary so the wettest, most trampled ground sits in the middle of the run where it weakens nothing. Where a dip has already formed under the fence, fill it with coarse stone rather than soil, because stone does not wash out in the next downpour and a Pekin cannot dabble it away.
Gate bottoms, thresholds and feeding-time pressure in a Pekin pen
Check the Pekin gate at feeding time, with the flock actually around your ankles, because that is when it is most likely to fail. Pekins crowd the gate in a solid, eager mass, and a gate that flexes outward at its lower corner under that combined weight can open a triangular gap at the post wide enough for one bird to slip through sideways while you are stepping over the rest.
Measure the gap beneath the gate after rain rather than on a dry day. Fit a threshold board or a hanging rubber strip to close it, and make the latch a positive, two-hand type: Pekins cannot work latches, but a simple gravity latch can bounce open when the whole flock surges against the gate at once, and the bird that wanders out is usually the boldest feeder, missed only at the evening count.
The weekly Pekin round: count, push, dig, look back
Keep the Pekin check short, physical, and weekly. Count the flock first so you know the run is full before you start, then push every low panel, dig one exploratory scrape beside each water point to see how soft the fence line has become, and finish by standing outside and sighting along the bottom wire; a sag or dip invisible from inside shows up clearly as a break in the line.
Replace tired timber at the base of the fence before it fails rather than after, since a Pekin flock will find a rotten board within days of it becoming pushable. If a bird does get out, look close to home first: Pekins wander slowly, follow fence lines, and head for any water they can hear, so check ditches, puddles, and neighbours' ponds before ranging wider. For extra eyes in that search, KinsLe's Lost Pet Alert System lets you alert nearby Circle of Love members for free through KinsLe, and whoever finds your Pekin can message you directly.