What to do with your leftover pumpkins after enjoying them over Halloween? There’s a variety of ways to dispose of your pumpkins but did you know wildlife can also really enjoy your pumpkins!
Lots of different animals can eat pumpkins and it’s a great idea to pop them outside after they’ve had their Halloween use! Your garden squirrels, birds, foxes and maybe even badgers all can eat and will eat your leftover pumpkins, just ensure that they are chopped up ready to go outside. Winter time is a good time to provide additional food to your garden wildlife as food is thin on the ground so any additional food is a great way to give something to your garden wildlife.
What do you need to do?
You don’t actually need to do anything, just ensure that there are no wax remains inside the pumpkin, you’ve taken your lights out and that there are no mouldy pieces – you wouldn’t feed mould to your pet, so why feed it to wildlife?
Who can’t eat pumpkins?
There aren’t many species that can eat pumpkin as majority of them enjoy all manner of food! But our garden Hedgehogs cannot eat pumpkins!! Pumpkins are fibrous fruit that breaks down and causes upset stomach and diarrhoea to Hedgehogs, this can lead to dehydration and while our Hedgehogs are fattening up for the winter, they do not need to loose all that they have saved up ready for the winter.
So, what is the best way to re-use our old pumpkins? You can still put your pumpkins outside for wildlife but the safest way for wildlife to enjoy the pumpkins and to keep our garden hedgehogs safe is to put them on a tray in some trees, on a bird table, or chop them up onto a plate off the ground and out of reach of our garden hoggies.
Dan Rouse 
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