This Nova Scotia pig is on the hunt for your leftover pumpkins

Are you unsure what to do with your pumpkins now that Halloween has passed? One Nova Scotian is asking the question, why not feed them to pigs?

Andrea Francheville, who runs a Facebook page for her rescue pot-bellied pig, Whitney, is urging residents not to let their pumpkins go to waste this season.

Instead, she’d like to see you donate them to an animal sanctuary or rescue, where they can be used to feed animals.

“At a time of food insecurity, we shouldn’t be tossing out food that is still usable,” she says.

“Most of the benefitting factors are on the inside — the guts — of the pumpkin, so some of the insides will cause a natural deworming. It’s filled with all kinds of good stuff, it’s good for the dietary tract, all kinds of stuff that’s really beneficial to pigs, of course, but many other animals as well — chickens and goats and sheep will all benefit as well.”

For the second year in a row, Francheville will also be collecting pumpkins to drop off at the North Mountain Animal Sanctuary in the Annapolis Valley.

“They have a lot of mouths to feed so when they get this stockpile — I’m not sure exactly sure how long they lasted last year, but I know they had them for quite a while — so the more we send them, the better off they are. They can add it to their regular feeding routine, and it’s something that they can spend finances on another purpose versus having to buy that type of nutrition for all of the animals,” she tells Global News.

If you have any uncarved pumpkins you’d like to see put to good use, you can drop them off at 2 Oakes Rd. in Fall River, N.S., by Wednesday morning.

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Francheville says she will be dropping them off at the sanctuary Wednesday evening.

“This time of year is a time when they’re trying to stock up and get stuff for the winter,” says Francheville.

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“As a non-profit, they rely solely on the donations of the community, the support of the community, so this is a really easy way to give back without having to make a financial donation.”