This time of year the whole 'pumpkin seeds are a natural wormer for chickens' posts start to surface.
When asked where did they get their data to make that claim the typical responses are, " I read it a blog where the author keeps chickens", "Because it just works!" "that's what everyone says" etc.
A simple link to a peer reviewed study using chickens using the scientific method (experimental data included so that it could be reproduced) would be swell...and no one can. There are so many types of internal parasitic worms and just a small biology lesson on what is the growing conditions required for worms and what pumpkin seeds (laughs) does to change those conditions to make the internal parts of a chicken a hostile environment that will 1) kill the adult parasites and 2) interrupt their life-cycle. No one has has completed such a study.
When claiming pumpkin seeds are the best thing ever, people need to ask themselves, "What about these seeds makes the worms die? Does it change the pH, inhibit reproduction, destroy eggs, increase normal microbiota to compete with the worms resources, affect the blood in a way so it is non digestible to the worms?"
For pumpkin seeds to work as claimed, they have to do something to the environment or nutrient intake to make the chickens a non-viable host...
Sure chickens and other poultry love to eat the seeds and even a smashed pumpkin out in the run. Heck, people even like to eat pumpkins and the seeds. It won't hurt them, pumpkins do have a nutritional value as well as a nice treat for your birds. But if you are expecting pumpkin seeds to cure a worm load in your flock it will be a long wait.
