Pumpkins for Piggies

Turning Halloween Waste into Farm Friend Feast

November 2025

After the Halloween lights fade, the Prairie Rose 4-H Club of Burleigh County gears up for one of its favorite traditions, “Pumpkins for Piggies.” Now entering its fifth year, the project is a creative community service effort that turns discarded jack-o’-lanterns into feed for a local hog farm.

Led by Angil Koper, the club of about a dozen boys and girls (most of whom haven’t grown up on farms) collects pumpkins from their neighborhood south of Lincoln the day after Halloween. What began as a single pickup load has now grown into two dump trailers filled with pumpkins, roughly 3,000 pumpkins collected last year alone.

The inspiration came from a Sterling farmer’s Facebook post about how much her pigs enjoy eating pumpkins. “Instead of thousands of pumpkins going to the landfill, we’d rather help our local farmers by recycling them,” Koper said. “It’s a fun way for kids to learn about feeding livestock and farm life.”

The highlight for the young 4-H members comes at the end of the route, when they deliver the pumpkins to the farm. “That’s their favorite part!” Koper said. “The kids love tossing pumpkins into the pens, and the pigs love it too. I think they can smell the pumpkins as soon as we drive up.”

Along with the fun, the club members also get a hands-on lesson in agriculture, meeting the pigs and even getting to see piglets up close. Through this project, Prairie Rose 4-H is not only helping reduce waste but also planting the seeds of agricultural appreciation in the next generation.

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