Why a Pekin needs low fencing, not tall fencing
A Pekin duck stays in with fencing about two to three feet high, far lower than most owners first build. Pekins are heavy-bodied domestic ducks bred for size, and that weight keeps them essentially grounded: a healthy Pekin may flap and hop, but sustained flight over a fence is not how this breed escapes. Pekins leave by walking, so they exploit gaps, gates, and low spots rather than the top edge.
That changes what you spend effort on. A short fence of the right mesh, sealed carefully at the ground, contains a Pekin better than a tall fence of wide chicken wire with a gap underneath. Watch your own flock waddle the perimeter at dusk: they push at corners and bill along the base, testing exactly the line your build needs to get right.
Mesh size and the Pekin bill
Choose welded wire or hardware cloth with small openings for a Pekin duck pen. Wide openings let a Pekin push her broad bill and head through to reach grass outside, which rewards pushing and can leave her stuck or injured. Small mesh also keeps a duck's head away from an animal reaching in from outside, a real risk in an uncovered pen overnight.
Hardware cloth is the stronger choice where raccoons or similar climbers are present, because thinner poultry netting can be torn or unwound by determined paws. Whatever mesh you pick for the Pekin run, fasten it to the inside of posts so pressure from ducks leaning and crowding pushes it against the frame, not off it.
The ground edge decides whether Pekins stay in
The base of a Pekin fence deserves a skirt. Bend the bottom of the mesh outward along the ground and pin or bury it, so a duck billing at the base meets wire instead of a tunnel, and a digging animal outside meets the same barrier. Pekins dabble and soften muddy ground with their bills and feet, especially around a water dish, and that constant wet work can open a hollow under a plain fence line within weeks.
Keep water stations a little inside the pen rather than tight against the fence, so the muddiest, most dug-up ground is not also your perimeter. On sloping ground, step the fence down the slope in sections instead of bridging straight across, which leaves triangular gaps a Pekin will find on her first afternoon.
Shelter, shade, and checking the Pekin pen
Containment for a Pekin duck includes a reason to stay in. Shade, dry bedding in the shelter, and clean swimming or head-dipping water inside the pen mean the flock settles rather than pacing the fence looking for better ground. Pekins overheat more readily than lighter ducks, and a flock crowding a shady corner outside the fence line will push harder on that corner's mesh.
Inspect the pen as you feed: look for fresh digging, mesh pulled away at staples, and a gate that no longer meets its latch because the ground has heaved. Ducks are creatures of routine, and a Pekin who learns one weak corner will lead the whole flock back to it every day until it is fixed.
A short daily walk of the fence line catches those weak corners early, and KinsLe Care Teams lets you assign that Pekin pen check as a duty so the person who completes it marks it done with a timestamp.