Yes, chickens can eat spaghetti squash seeds. Scoop them out raw and toss them to your flock, or roast them plain with no salt. The cooked strands are fine too, as long as they’re plain. What I’d keep out of the run is the dinner version, dressed with olive oil and parmesan, plus any squash that tastes bitter. Everything goes inside the treat limit. By my math, that’s a tablespoon to a tablespoon and a half of cooked strands per hen a day, or about 30 to 45 seeds. That covers every treat she gets. And the best trial I found, on pumpkin seeds, saw no sign that they deworm hens.
I rewrote this page from 23 sources, and every one is listed at the bottom. What spaghetti squash is comes from PROTA (a reference on the useful plants of tropical Africa) and from extension pages in Nebraska and Missouri. Minnesota’s and Illinois’s extension pages cover cutting it and its skin. The nutrient numbers come from five USDA FoodData Central entries and from Feedipedia, the feed database of INRAE and CIRAD with AFZ and FAO. Feeding a flock comes from Colorado State and Alabama Extension, plus UC Davis and three pages of the Merck Veterinary Manual. Kentucky’s Jacquie Jacob explains the gizzard. Iowa State covers pumpkins for livestock, and Utah State covers chickens in a vegetable garden. The worm trial is a 2023 study from Switzerland, and the bitter squash warning comes from the National Capital Poison Center. Where the advice is my own reasoning, I’ll say so.
The old version of this page told a story I can’t back up. It began with “my buddy Keith and I found a huge spaghetti squash growing wild on his family’s chicken farm”. It said “We were both 15 years old”, and the squash was “probably weighing 30 pounds or more”. Its serving advice came “Through some trial and error”. I can’t show any of that happened, so it’s gone. So is a sentence that was never meant for readers: “Here are 7 more sections related to feeding chickens spaghetti squash seeds, each with about 725 words:”.
Some of the advice went with it. It said “No more than one large handful per chicken per day as the upper limit”. No source I read gives a handful as a limit, and the treat limit below is a lot smaller. It said “Vines and leaves add beneficial antioxidants” and “Immature squash fruit packs extra vitamins” with no source for either. For young birds or breeds with small beaks, it suggested crushing the seeds, even putting them in a feed bag and going over it “with your car tire to break shells”. No source I read says you need to crack squash seeds. It had recipes too, like a spaghetti squash lasagna with meat sauce, and a guide to growing squash just for your flock. And it said “Chickens can safely consume all parts of a spaghetti squash”. A bitter one can make people sick, and my call is that it stays out of your coop too.
A word on the photos. None of them shows a chicken eating spaghetti squash, because I couldn’t find a real photo of that I’d trust. The closest is a staff photo from Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky and Tennessee: barred hens crowding a hand with one seed in it. Its caption says the farm animals there eat the pumpkins with the seeds in them. The lead photo is spaghetti squash in a grocery store box, by Jeffery Martin on Wikimedia Commons. Three more come from Alan Levine on Flickr, one more from Land Between the Lakes, and one from Matze Weiss on Unsplash. Every credit links to the photo’s own page.
The short version.
- Raw seeds straight from the squash are fine, and so are plain roasted ones. Salted ones aren’t.
- The strands are mostly water. They’re a light treat, not a meal.
- A tablespoon to a tablespoon and a half of strands per hen a day, by my math, and that’s all of her treats together.
- Set the hens’ strands aside before you season the squash. Your leftovers go in the trash or the compost.
- Give a raw squash in a wedge, not a whole half, and pick up the rind before dark. That part’s my call.
- A bitter squash goes in the trash, and its seeds go with it. So does a moldy jack-o’-lantern, or one with wax or paint on it.
- The best trial I found, on pumpkin seeds, saw no deworming effect.
- Keep hens out of the squash patch until the last squash is picked. My call again.
Spaghetti Squash Seeds Are Fine Raw or Plain Roasted
Spaghetti squash is a winter squash. PROTA files it under Cucurbita pepo, the same species as zucchini. It says “‘Vegetable spaghetti’ cultivars are a speciality; when cooked the flesh of mature fruits resolves into thin strands which look like spaghetti”. Nebraska Extension describes it as golden yellow, shaped like a small watermelon, and 2 to 5 pounds. It’s been around longer than you’d think. Missouri Extension traces it to Manchuria in the late 1800s, then Japan in the 1920s, and says Burpee brought it to North America in the later 1930s.
And its seeds are like any other squash seed. PROTA says “Cucurbita pepo seeds are edible in the same way as those of other cucurbits, either raw or roasted”. That’s written about people. But USDA doesn’t split squash seeds by variety either. Its entry is filed as “pumpkin and squash seeds”, one set of numbers for all of them.
The easy time to get them is before you cook. Minnesota Extension’s spaghetti squash page says to cut it “in half lengthwise” and then “Scrape the seeds out of the middle with a spoon”. Those raw, wet seeds can go straight to your hens. You don’t have to crack or chop them. Birds have no teeth, and Jacquie Jacob of the University of Kentucky, writing on poultry.extension.org, says the gizzard is “two sets of strong muscles that act as the bird’s teeth”.
Grit is the one thing to check. Jacob says “Chickens fed only commercially prepared feed do not need grit”. Birds eating whole grains, or out on pasture without enough pebbles, usually need it added. My read is that whole seeds put your flock in the same boat as whole grains. So if your hens get seeds and scraps, keep a dish of grit out by the feeder.
Roasted is fine too (as long as it’s plain). Salt is the problem, and I ran those numbers on my acorn squash seeds page. By my math there, a salted roasted seed comes out about 6.5 percent salt. The Merck Veterinary Manual recommends adding 0.5 percent salt to a chicken’s ration, so that seed is 13 times as salty. If you roasted a salted batch for yourself, those are yours.
Now for the worms. Squash and pumpkin seeds have a name as a natural dewormer. Iowa State’s livestock blog says of pumpkin “Some believe it may act as a natural dewormer; however, this has not been proven”. The best test I found agrees. A 2023 trial from Switzerland fed laying hens with a natural roundworm infection 10 grams of pumpkin seeds a bird a day for 29 days. It “revealed no evidence of anthelmintic effects of pumpkin seeds”. The authors say higher doses still need testing. I go through that trial on the acorn squash page. If you think your birds have worms, that’s a call for a vet who sees poultry, not a bowl of seeds.
The Strands Are Mostly Water
USDA’s entry for cooked spaghetti squash, without salt, has 92.3 grams of water in every 100 grams. That leaves 7.7 grams of everything else. Protein is 0.66 grams and fat is 0.26, with 1.4 grams of fiber. A cup weighs 155 grams and comes to about 42 calories, which is the same number Nebraska Extension gives.
Now compare that with what a laying hen needs. Alabama Extension says she “should receive a layer diet with around 18 percent crude protein”. By my math, gram for gram, that feed carries about 27 times the protein of the strands.
So the strands won’t feed her much. They’re a treat, not a meal.
And Feedipedia says much the same about squash and pumpkin fruit in general. The fruit is so low in dry matter, and so in nutrients, that it’s worth little as animal feed. That’s my paraphrase, because the page marks itself as under construction and asks not to be quoted. It was last updated in 2012, and its contents come from FAO’s feed records of 1991 to 2002 and an older book on tropical feeds. Still, its dry matter figure for fresh squash and pumpkin fruit is 7.6 percent. USDA’s raw spaghetti squash is 91.6 grams water, which leaves 8.4 grams of solids.
Close enough.
So I think of the strands as a light treat (a nice change in winter, when the run’s gone brown, but mostly water). That part’s my call. The seeds are the opposite. USDA’s whole roasted seeds have 19.4 grams of fat and 18.55 grams of protein per 100 grams. By my math, that’s about 75 times the fat of the cooked strands. Merck’s backyard poultry page says “Fat scraps should also be avoided, because they promote the development of fatty liver”. A seed isn’t a fat scrap. It’s just the rich part of the squash, so it gets counted.
How Much Squash a Hen Gets
Squash is a treat, so it lives inside your hens’ treat limit. Colorado State says “Treats should make up no more than 10% of their daily diet”. Alabama says “A laying hen will consume between 100 and 150 grams of feed per day”. That puts a hen’s treats at 10 to 15 grams a day. That’s everything extra she gets, the squash and the kitchen scraps and the scratch, not just the squash.
USDA’s cup of cooked strands weighs 155 grams, so a tablespoon is about 10 grams. By my math, a hen’s share is a tablespoon to a tablespoon and a half of strands a day. For six hens, that’s roughly half a cup. Seeds I worked out on the acorn squash page, from USDA’s count of 85 roasted seeds to the ounce. It came to about 30 to 45 seeds a hen. Fresh seeds straight from your squash are wet, so I’d guess each weighs a bit more. I’d call it 30 and not worry about it. If she gets seeds and strands on the same day, split her share between them.
Now put that next to the whole squash. Nebraska says one runs 2 to 5 pounds. By my math, half of even a small one weighs at least five times what six hens should get in treats in a day.
I know, that sounds stingy for something that’s mostly water. Alabama explains why it matters with an ice cream comparison. Kids offered ice cream at every meal will eat it gladly and miss what they need, and birds do the same with treats. Too much of it, Alabama says, and their egg production is likely to suffer. UC Davis’s flock guide says it shorter: “treat the scraps like a treat not like the main course”.
Colorado State has one more rule: “Do not feed more than can be consumed in 5 – 10 minutes to not attract nuisance animals”. Strands are stringy, and a pile dumped on the ground gets trampled into the bedding. My call is a shallow dish, picked up once it’s empty. A heap of wet squash left in the run overnight is exactly the kind of thing that brings a raccoon around.
Leftovers From Your Plate Are Another Story
Missouri Extension calls spaghetti squash “a popular pasta alternative”, so it tends to pick up whatever pasta would. Missouri Extension says to serve it with your favorite marinara, or with its own recipe of olive oil and garlic, cherry tomatoes and parmesan. Minnesota’s page roasts it with olive oil and salt and pepper, or stuffs it with vegetables and tops it with cheese.
All good for you. Not so good for your hens.
Salt is the easy one to measure. USDA has two entries for cooked spaghetti squash, one without salt and one with it. The plain one has 18 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams. The salted one has 254, about 14 times as much. By my math, that’s about 0.65 percent salt. The Merck Veterinary Manual says “The addition of 0.5% salt (NaCl) to the ration of chickens and turkeys is recommended; however, amounts > 2% are usually considered dangerous”. So salted strands are already above what Merck recommends adding to a whole ration, though under its danger line. I didn’t look up every sauce and cheese, so I go by Colorado State’s plain rule for scraps: “Make sure they are not salty”.
Then there’s the fat. Olive oil and cheese are the rich part of that plate. Merck says fat scraps “promote the development of fatty liver and acute death from liver rupture”. UC Davis’s flock guide also says to avoid fatty foods, since chickens don’t need much fat. And if the sauce has onion in it, that’s out too. Colorado State lists onions among the scraps to skip, so check the label on the jar.
My call: when you’re making spaghetti squash for dinner, set aside a few spoonfuls of plain strands before anything goes on them. That’s the hens’ share. What’s left on your plate goes in the trash or the compost, not the run.
What to Do With the Rind and a Raw Half
The rind is the hard part, at least for you. Minnesota Extension tells you to cut the squash “being mindful of its tough skin”. Illinois Extension says “Most squash has inedible skin. However, you can eat the skin on delicata and acorn squashes”. Spaghetti squash isn’t on that short list, and that’s for people. I found no source on hens and squash rind. My call: let them pick the flesh off and toss the rind once they’re done.
And raw squash works too. Iowa State’s livestock blog was writing about pumpkins after Halloween, and pumpkins are filed under the same species in PROTA. Its advice carries over well: “Pumpkins should be cut up for smaller livestock”. If pumpkins aren’t normally in an animal’s diet, the blog says they “should be fed in small amounts to prevent upsetting their digestive tracts”. I’d treat squash the same way. It even suggests you “Hang pumpkin feeders for goats and poultry”.
So here’s how I’d do a raw one. Cut it in half lengthwise the way Minnesota says, scrape out the seeds, and slice a wedge off one half for the hens. A whole half is far more than a day’s treats for a small flock, by the math above. Hang it if you can, or set it in a dish, and pick up the rind before dark, same as the strands.
If you’ve got a whole spaghetti squash waiting, it keeps a good while, though the extension pages don’t agree on how long. Nebraska says winter squash kept in a dry place at 55 to 60 degrees will store for up to 3 months. Missouri says up to 2 months. Minnesota’s page says an uncooked whole squash lasts up to 10 days. Whichever you go by, look it over before your hens get it. Colorado State’s scrap rule says no moldy scraps. Merck’s page on mold toxins in poultry is written about feed, but its point carries: once formed, “they are chemically stable and persist in the contaminated ingredient even through becoming a finished feed”. A soft, moldy squash goes in the trash.
Bitter Squash and Moldy Jack-o’-Lanterns Go in the Trash
This is the one rule I’d never bend.
Squash can make a bitter chemical called cucurbitacin, and the National Capital Poison Center names spaghetti squash among the squash it’s sometimes found in. It says “Plants produce cucurbitacin as a defense mechanism against insects and animals that feed on them”. It says “Farmed gourds that are sold in grocery stores are bred to contain only very small amounts of cucurbitacin”. The center uses gourds for the whole family there, as I read it, so that covers the squash you buy. But a squash high in it “will taste very bitter but otherwise look and smell normal”, and “Cooking does not destroy cucurbitacin”.
The center tells the case of a 55-year-old woman who “ate bitter-tasting spaghetti squash”. She was vomiting within hours, broke out in a rash the next day and lost hair five days after she ate it. Its test is a tiny taste of the raw squash: “If it is bitter, spit it out and throw it away”. The center writes for people, not hens. The one chick study I’ve found fed young chicks the seed of colocynth, one of the bitter cucurbits, and at the higher dose their growth suffered. I go through it in my gourds post, linked below. My call: if a squash is bitter, nobody in my house or my coop eats it. That goes for its seeds too, since they came out of the same squash.
It also explains how a garden squash ends up bitter. Under stress such as high heat or drought, the plant makes more of it. And “sometimes wild toxic gourds that contain high levels of cucurbitacin accidentally cross-pollinate with domestic gourds”. If you’re saving seeds from this year’s squash to plant next spring, that’s a reason not to. The center’s advice is to “Buy new seeds each year” and not to plant edible and ornamental squash close together.
Plus, decorative squash is a no from the start. The center says “Decorative squashes such as colocynths are not edible since they contain high concentrations of cucurbitacin”. PROTA says fruits of Cucurbita pepo, “especially ornamental forms, may contain bitter compounds”. I sorted out the rest of that question in my post on gourds for chickens.
And since it’s that time of year, a word on jack-o’-lanterns. Iowa State says “If your pumpkin was used as a jack-o’-lantern and has candle wax inside, or paint on the outside, do not feed it to livestock”. The one on the left in the photo has patches of green fuzz around its eye, which looks like mold to me. Moldy is out, per Colorado State. If yours is fresh and clean, with no candle wax inside and no paint on it, it’s a treat like any other squash, and the same treat limit applies.
The Leaves and Vines in Your Squash Patch
If you grow spaghetti squash, your hens will find the patch. Here’s what I found on the plant itself. PROTA says the young leaves and shoots of Cucurbita pepo are used as a potherb in places like south-western Nigeria. In general, it says, the leaves of another squash, Cucurbita moschata, are preferred, “being less coarse”. It also describes this species’ “prickly hairy stems and leaves”. USDA’s entry for raw pumpkin leaves has 3.15 grams of protein per 100 grams, more than the strands, and they’re still 92.88 grams water.
Honestly, the only animal feeding data I found was for rabbits. Feedipedia says squash leaves can replace up to 75 percent of the soybean meal in commercial rabbit diets with no harm to the rabbits’ breeding. That’s rabbits, not hens. I found no study that fed squash leaves or vines to chickens. UC Davis’s list of foods to avoid feeding your flock names the leaves of tomato and potato plants, along with other nightshades, and squash isn’t on it.
Then there’s the garden itself. Utah State Extension’s talk on chickens in the vegetable garden lists “Vegetable damage” from chickens scratching and eating plants. It also lists “Death loss”, with skunks and raccoons among the culprits. Its fixes include taking part of the garden out of production, and portable electric fencing to keep chickens safe and away from the plants.
My call: keep the hens out while the squash is growing, and let them into the patch after you’ve picked the last one. By then the vines are dying back (the leaves behind the pumpkin in the photo have already yellowed), and the birds can scratch through for bugs. Utah State counts that as pest control for your garden. An earlier version of its talk says “Chickens chase anything that moves”, from ants and worms to grasshoppers. Pull any squash you find rotted on the vine first.
If you’re sorting out the rest of the squash family, my acorn squash seeds page has the seed details. My post on what not to feed chickens has the short list of things to keep out of the run. And for anything else you’re holding over the fence, try the Can Chickens Eat It? food checker.
Sources
- Messiaen and Fagbayide, PROTA (2004): Cucurbita pepo.
- Feedipedia: the Cucurbita species datasheet (pumpkin and squash among them).
- Brenda Aufdenkamp, Nebraska Extension: Spaghetti Squash.
- Denise Sullivan, University of Missouri Extension, Jackson County (2020): Plants on Your Plate, Spaghetti Squash.
- University of Minnesota Extension, Real Life Good Food: Spaghetti squash.
- University of Illinois Extension, Eat.Move.Save.: Winter Squash.
- USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 169299: Squash, winter, spaghetti, cooked, boiled, drained, or baked, without salt.
- USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 170539: Squash, winter, spaghetti, cooked, boiled, drained, or baked, with salt.
- USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 169298: Squash, winter, spaghetti, raw.
- USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 170188: Pumpkin and squash seeds, whole, roasted, without salt.
- USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy 169272: Pumpkin leaves, raw.
- Howard Enos, Colorado State University Extension: Raising Poultry the Organic Way, Disease Control and Feeding.
- Pacheco and colleagues, Alabama Cooperative Extension, ANR-2913 (2022): Feeding the Laying Hen.
- Pitesky and Reimers, UC Davis: Feeding your Flock.
- Yuko Sato, Merck Veterinary Manual (2024): Management of Backyard Poultry.
- Carmen Jerry, Merck Veterinary Manual (2024): Poisonings in Poultry.
- Dulmelis Sandu, Merck Veterinary Manual: Mycotoxicoses in Poultry.
- Jacquie Jacob, poultry.extension.org: Avian Digestive System.
- Rodenbücher and colleagues, Veterinary Research Communications (2023): Pumpkin seeds, lemongrass essential oil and ripleaf leaves as feed additives for Ascaridia galli infected laying hens.
- Iowa State University, The Livestock Project (2025): Halloween and our Livestock.
- Matt Palmer and David Frame, Utah State University Extension (2010): Chickens in the Vegetable Garden.
- Matt Palmer, Utah State University Extension (2009): Chickens in the Vegetable Garden.
- Wendy Klein-Schwartz, National Capital Poison Center: Toxic Squash Syndrome.
Sources checked October 31, 2026. The calls on strands as a light treat, on a wedge instead of a whole half, on picking up the rind before dark, on keeping a bitter squash out of the coop and on keeping hens out of the patch until harvest are mine. So are the treat amounts, worked out from the sources’ own numbers. We aren’t vets. If a bird looks sick, call a vet who sees poultry.
Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe
