Ok, my DH and I want to know if any of you KNOW for a fact if chickens can swim or not . . . . not by what you read, by experience only!
Let me go throw my least favorite chickens into the pool and I'll let you know when I go check on them the next morning. I honestly have no idea though. My guess would be no, since their feathers would soak up water and probably make them sink
now wait,,,when i was a kid we had a rooster,,,,henny...lol we would put him in the pool, he would swim to the other side,,,but he couldnt get out,,,he was way to heavy wet,,,,but he did swim...lol
The reason for this odd request is because this morning we saw our rooster not only swim, but he fought against a fastly moving current. Who knew he culd but he sure did. He somehow got caught up in the creek and the current was rough due to rain and melting snow. I just wanted to see who else out there thought chickens can swim!
You might want to use that roo for breeding. That would be a good trait for chickens in emergency situations.
When I was a little kid, we had an irrigation canal running thru our farm and one day my brother decided to put our bantie hens in it to see if they could swim . I was 3 or 4 years-old then and he is 3 years older. The hens were swept away in the current. We ran along the bank desperately trying to encourage them to "swim" out of the water. Just before the canal left our property, my brother was just able to get down to the level of the water and catch the 2nd hen . The 1st hen continued on down the canal to whatever fate awaited her . If you look at my BYC page, you can see the hen that he saved after this ill-conceived idea to drop them in the canal. It was my bantie hen. She had a number of broods of chicks over the years - I never shared any with him . . . Steve
From my experience, no they can't. I lost a girl last year because she somehow got into the kiddie pool and drowned. I've also had a youngster get in the horses water and that was not a happy ending either.