Mine love cucumbers! In the summer we would chop them up and put them in the freezer, the high amounts of water in them made them into very good chicken popsicles.
A pumpkin busted open is good for several days. Check for busted pumpkins where you get them. Those will be much less expensive or free.
I just bust it open. They consume all but the outer most skin and the stem. Sometimes they eat the skin early in process. Sugar pumpkins seem more interesting in terms of skin with my birds.
What do you mean 'busted open'?
I just throw it down hard. My kids butcher it with hatched or hammer. My chickens have never consumed cooked pumpkin to my knowledge, but they eat anything I eat and then some. The additional time required to consume raw pumpkin does not seem to be an issue as it appears to be a source of entertainment as well. They have at times pecked holes into intact pumpkins on their own. First the consumed seeds and the guts, then they went after the flesh. It was like watching vultures poking their heads into a rotting corpse.
Sounds like a plan! May also recycle some old jack o lanterns if they like the small one before halloween. They can eat all of it, and gorging won't make them sick?
Mine have never gotten sick by eating too much. They often get what appears to be a pendulous crop as they step up overall intake to maintain dry matter intake. Feces may become looser.
