Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

When carving your Jack-O-Lantern this Halloween, save your Pumpkin's seeds and make delicious bird treats out of them, instead!

Full of flavor, these little seeds pack a great big punch that our birds [and we] cannot resist! Collect all your pumpkin's seeds into a bowl and submerge with water. Soaking the seeds is a neccesarry step in roasting the seeds, since the water they absorb while soaking will steam-cook them instead of drying them out. You want your seeds to be not-too-squishy, not-too-crunchy after roasting.

To keep your seeds underwater, you can set a concave strainer or collander on top of them, in the bowl to circumvent your seeds from floating at the top of the water. You can cut up a green or red pepper and place in the water to give your seeds more flavor. Our parrots have relatively few taste buds compared to us, so spicy foods that seem potent to us barely taste at all to our birds. Or, you can dust them with Chili Powder before cooking to give them an extra kick!

Let them soak for a full 24 hours, and then drain the water. Place the seeds on a greased or lined cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees until crisp and golden on the outside. Let cool and serve to your bird in foraging toys such as the Carousel Foraging Toy or Learn & Turn Logs.

Image compliments of Hardcore Herbivore