Other uses for pumpkin seeds

I was at the grocery store last Friday and noticed a sign out front next to their huge pile of pumpkins. They were all marked down to a buck. Apparently people only buy pumpkins before Halloween? What happened to all the Thanksgiving pumpkins for pies and decorating? I bought four since that's all that would fit in my car with the load of groceries, dog food and Greta. What am I going to do with four big pumpkins? Collect seeds of course! Did you know that raw pumpkin seeds are a fairly effective means of worm control in livestock?

They are! Raw pumpkin seeds contain an amino acid called cucurbitacin, a compound used to expel tapeworms and roundworms in livestock for years. They are also very nutritious containing fiber, iron, copper, phosphorus and magnesium, calcium, zinc, potassium, folic acid and niacin along with a lot of protein. All of this make them wonderful little things to feed to goats in particular. Heading into another winter I'm trying to make the worm load as light as possible for our older goat Dym. Of course these seeds don't replace chemical wormers but I'm all for trying natural dewormers to lengthen the time between chemical doses.

Greta helped me collect seeds from one of the pumpkins yesterday. We then sliced up the pumpkin meat. The goats were more than happy to eat the seeds and pulp (is there anything they won't eat?). They munched on a little of the pumpkin meat but most of that went to the chickens. Three pumpkins left for the next few months. We'll slice up a new one every couple of weeks and see if it helps their worm load this winter.