For Durocs, the Fence Fights Two Battles at Once
A grown Duroc sow or boar is a large, muscular, self-assured animal, and coyotes rarely tackle one in the open. The losses come at the other end of life: newborn and young piglets, small enough to be carried off and unable to defend themselves. At the same time, Durocs work against their own fencing every day. A pig's snout is a digging tool, and a sow rooting along a fence line for roots and cool earth can lift, bend, and undermine a barrier until the gap she made for herself becomes a doorway for a predator.
Any Duroc fence has to be planned for both pressures — piglets who must not get out or be reached, and strong adults who must not take the fence apart from inside.
Panels and Skirts That Stand Up to Snouts
Rigid hog panels, securely clipped to solid posts, are the usual answer for pig runs because they flex far less than light wire under a rubbing, pushing pig. For larger pastures, heavy woven wire can work, but whichever you choose, protect its base. Bury the bottom edge, lay a skirt of mesh flat on the ground inside the pen, or run a low electrified strand just inside the fence at snout height so pigs learn to root in the middle of the pen, not along its edge.
Outside, a separate electric strand at coyote nose height discourages investigation before paws reach the panels. Keep gates as strong as the fence itself, hung so they cannot be lifted off their hinges by a pig working underneath with her snout.
Farrowing Pens Need Piglet-Scale Thinking
The farrowing area is where predator-proofing matters most. Mesh here must be fine enough that a piglet cannot squeeze out to the wrong side, and the bottom must have no slot a raccoon's arm or a fox's muzzle can work through. Solid lower boarding on the pen's outside adds protection and also stops draughts on newborn litters.
Site farrowing pens away from woodland edges and ditch lines that give predators a hidden approach, and keep the area lit and visited late in the evening during farrowing weeks. A sow who farrows unexpectedly out in the main run should be moved promptly; piglets born beyond the tight mesh are exposed from their first hour.
Maintenance Shaped by Pig Behaviour
Walk Duroc pens looking down, not across. Fresh rooting craters along the wire, panels bowed outward at pig height, mud wallows forming against a post, and feed spilled outside the fence attracting night visitors are your early warnings. Move wallows and feeding points away from the perimeter so daily pig traffic stops loosening the ground your posts stand in.
Re-tension, re-clip, and backfill promptly, and after any predator attempt, check whether pig rooting created the opening — fixing only the outside leaves the inside engineer still at work.
In KinsLe, Family Sharing puts each Duroc sow's farrowing notes, pen location, and care details in a profile everyone helping can open, so moves into the secure pens happen on time and on the same information.