Pumpkins for my chickens

[calicokat]

We fed the flock our Halloween pumpkins after the holiday and they loved them. As I drive around, I'm seeing some pumpkins still around on porches or at the fencerow. I'm wondering if they'd be ok still to feed to the girls (of course, knocking on the owners door and asking permission to remove them). The ones I would want are still holding their shape, not the smushed down rotting ones.

Any thoughts??

 

[ams3651]

I gather up what I can find after thanksgiving, even got several free from the grocery store. I put some out to go to seed for next year and the others I put aside for the chickens. Just gave them one last week that was frozen but they still loved it. I would t give them something that had mold on it but Ive given them ones that were just soft from setting out or from being frozen / frosted.

 

[moonlyghtegirl]

Unless the pumpkin has badly molded throughout, you can generally cut the mold off, and toss it before feeding it to them, It's like cutting mold off hard cheese, just be careful you don't cut yourself.

 

[UrbanGrower]

I literally collected a full truckload of carved pumpkins(with some whole ones), cut about a third of the pumpkins into chunks and froze them, the whole pumpkins I cut up as I needed but I just left them outside, even when a bit mushy they still like them. Sometimes I boil mine which they seem to like more, and they eat more of it. If they start getting moldy before I freeze them, I give them to the worms or the compost. I still have about 15 bags (cheap bread bags) and I cook one up about once a week for them, especially on cold days.

 

[ams3651]

great idea, never even occured to me to freeze them. I froze clover last year and fed over the winter.

 

[Schroeder]

I waited until several days after Haloween and bought large ones for $.50. Last year the hens at 9 months old loved them. This year they hardly touch them and there are 2 different varieties of pumpkins, one of which is Sugar Pie.

 

[AbbyDog]

My hens LOVE pumpkin and all squashes- but beware if the rind gets hard- I had one hen who ate great huge beakfulls of rind only to end up with an impacted crop - she had to have surgery to remove the pieces that were hard like bark. Chickens can bite off more than they can chew, sometimes.

 

[Zanna]

I have two pumpkins in the oven right now for my flock........... Mine will not eat them raw unless they are still green when the innards are softer (same with crooknecks and other squash). I cut them in 1/2 and bake them cut side down (leaving all the seeds inside) at 400 deg. until soft. I sometimes even scoop out a cup or two for a "people" recipe (pumpkin bread, pound cake, muffins, etc) and give the girls the rest. I have never had them eat the outer rind, I compost it when they have pecked out all the insides. Not their favorite treat but some like it more than others. It takes a couple of days for my flock of 50 to finish up two good sized pumkins. They free range though, year round, all daylight hours, so find lots of other goodies on their own. I grow a huge garden with lots of pumpkins, they keep in the garage till spring if I haven't fed them all by then. Leftover Halloween pumpkins work great as long as there is no mold or rot that you can not cut out before feeding.

 

[nanawendy]

My girls got the last Hubbard on New Years Day. They loved it and it was more of a challenge than other squashes. That was the last of the garden for 2010

Now I'm planning 2011.

I'll do things a little different this year.