Have you ever wondered if can chickens eat pumpkins? Fall time is in the air, and the pumpkin patches are open. Chickens will be so excited to receive a special treat this season! With extra nutrition and added fun, let’s look at the reasons to feed chickens pumpkins.
Chickens love to eat pumpkins and their seeds. The best part is that it is a snack that will last for days.
What I like to do is cut the pumpkin in half to help the chickens get started. Then I feed the chickens the whole pumpkin.
They may look weird at it at first, but once they’re curious about it, they head off to town.
1. Can Chickens Eat Pumpkin? Extra Nutrients
Pumpkins are a great source of vitamin A. They also have many other vitamins and minerals. Vitamin A is an essential vitamin for chickens.
A deficiency in vitamin A could cause blood spots on the eggs, symptoms of an upper respiratory disease, and could even cause scales that resemble horrible bird pox. Pumpkins also contain some vitamin B and C, which can help promote growth, relieve stress, and with hatch chicks.
2. Entertainment – Feed the chickens pumpkins
It’s a lot of fun for us crazy chicken ladies & amp; the boys watch them swallow everything. When I gave the babies (they were born last spring) the pumpkin they seriously thought it must be an alien.
What is this weird thing? Oh, wait… This weird thing is delicious! Hmm!
Natural anti worms? Not really
You’ve probably already heard of pumpkin seeds as a very useful way to get rid of worms in your chickens. Or not?
I’ve heard this so many times, I started to believe it!
Supposedly, not only squash but also other varieties of squash, cucumbers, and melons have an amino acid called cucurbitacin that paralyzes worms, and they are then deposited in waste.
So why doesn’t this really work? Well, El Pollito has the answer! It seems like you’ve done your research, and what you’re saying makes perfect sense.
Basically, a chicken could not consume enough pumpkin seeds to guarantee a sufficient concentration of cucurbitacin in its system to kill the worms or parasites.
3. Busy work – Feed the chickens pumpkins
So I keep some of my chickens separate. Babies born last spring are not free (yet). Being locked up, they sometimes get bored. They peck at each other, pluck the feathers, eat them, and so on.
I know it’s ridiculous, eat feathers? Geesh, guys, find it! I love giving them something else to focus on.
Sometimes I hang a head of lettuce in the chicken coop, or other veggies to give them something to focus on.
Since they aren’t looking for bugs most of the day, pumpkins are a good job.
Note that you may want to remove the squash at night, so it doesn’t attract more predators. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need any more predators in the henhouse at night!
I have a couple of junk bandits who try their best to get in every night.
They have devastated our chicken feed supplies, and now they have to be stored in a more secure area, where they can’t get in!
Another thing to keep in mind is to keep an eye on the deterioration.
If the squash shows signs of spoilage, it’s time to compost it. Signs of spoilage include mushy, moldy, and foul odors.
Good luck, and I hope your chickens like pumpkins as much as mine!
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