There are plenty of good reasons to feed pumpkin to chickens. Pumpkin is one of the best foods for your flock because it is beneficial for chickens. It’s full of vitamins and is said to naturally deworm your flock. You can feed your chickens raw or cooked pumpkin, including the flesh, seeds, and guts. Chickens enjoy pecking away at the skin of a whole pumpkin, making it a great boredom buster, or cut them in half and let them dive right in. If you don’t have pumpkins left over from your fall decorations, ask your neighbors. Be sure to remove any stickers, googly eyes and other detachable embellishments from the pumpkin’s outer shell. Next, inspect the interior and remove any candle-wax remnants. As long as they’re not rotten they are a great treat for your chickens. If you are decorating your front porch with carved pumpkins and plan to remove the pulp and seeds, you can hand it right over to your flock, who will gladly devour every bit of it. If you roast your pumpkin seeds, you can feed those to your flock if there is no salt, sugar, etc. add to them. Plain is best.
Benefits Of Feeding Pumpkins To Chickens
Pumpkin is high in potassium, calcium, magnesium, niacin, iron and beta-carotene, as well as vitamins A, B, C and E. Pumpkins seeds are high in good fats. Pumpkins also have wonderful antioxidant properties. That said, be careful not to overfeed pumpkin to your flock as this could cause an imbalance in their diet. Ideally, they should be filling up on a high-quality feed designed for their specific needs, e.g. layer feed for hens in the egg laying age.
Pumpkins Are Said To Be A Natural Worm Preventative
While pumpkin seeds cannot deworm a chicken already suffering parasitic worms, pumpkin seeds can be a natural preventative. It’s the coating on the raw seeds called cucurbitacin that is said to have the ability to paralyze internal worms and parasites. You can cut the pumpkin in half and let your chickens go to town. They’ll enjoy devouring the guts, seeds, flesh and skin.
Long term storage of pumpkins
Keep whole pumpkins in a cool dry place for up to 2 months (longer if the conditions are ideal). You can also cut up the pumpkin into cubes and keep them in the freezer for 3-4 months. Thaw out portions throughout the winter to feed to your chickens. Pureeing the pumpkin is another great way to store pumpkin.
Hey, JR here. Great article, refreshing and informative. I am going to plan on obtaining, distributing and storing some pumpkin for the flock, I definitely want them to be healthy. Thanks for the great article.
Amazing. Natural help for the chickens. No chemicals involved. As the saying goes. Learn something new every day.
Great article, very informative. Pumpkins are a great source of natural nutrition.