Pumpkins are suspicious

I recently found myself in the possession of three, large Halloween pumpkins that hadn't been carved by their original owner.

Initially, I intended to give all three pumpkins to my chickens, but I changed my mind after cutting pumpkin #1 open, popping it into the oven:

...baking it until it was soft and delicious:

and then, with great excitement, presenting it to them:

Only to find, from the reaction they gave me, you'd think I had given them liver and onions.

They all immediately gave the pumpkin a very wide berth, averted their tiny chicken eyes and collectively said, under their breath (but I totally still heard them), "Bleeeech!!":

And there it sat - for days - untouched, unloved, and unappreciated:

Until I picked it up and put it in the compost.

The next day, a very foggy day, I moved on to the next animals I thought might enjoy the orange orbs. I figured I stood a good chance of my donkey boys showing at least some interest, since one of their favorite toys is the same color:

I took pumpkin #2, raw and whole, down to the pasture and put it on the ground in front of them. Their reaction was less than enthusiastic:

Chester eventually meandered over, but that was only because he wanted a carrot (also orange, I might point out):

I decided to cut it open to see if it would then smell like something they would like to eat:

It was regarded with even more than the usual level of suspicion:

Yay, I thought, when I saw Beau coming forward:

Now he's going to take a great, big bite, I thought:

"Got any carrots, Mom?" (note Chester's expression in the background):

Chester finally worked up the courage to come by for a sniff, but he didn't want a bite either:

The smell alone was clearly enough for him - I had never seen a donkey pucker before:

Then we all just kind of stood around for a while:

...Until Kai was able to work through her suspicions (llamas tend to be highly suspicious by nature anyway, so this was a double-whammy for her) and come by for a look-see:

In all fairness, they all really did give that pumpkin a thorough investigation and, for this, I am proud of them:

Pumpkin #3 totally got away from me as I was carrying it out and it rolled down the hill (imagine 3 heads (2 donkey, 1 llama) turning to follow the progress of an orange pumpkin bumping its way down the hill through the fog:

Being the really good sport that I am, I hiked to the bottom of the hill, retrieved the pumpkin and put it in a different part of the pasture in case anybody wanted to play with it:

They did not.

As my German grandmother used to say, whenever she encountered something a little out of her comfort zone, "Interessant, aber nichts für mich" (Translation: "Interesting, but not for me"):

That pumpkin was still sitting out there last time I looked.
Pumpkins are suspicious.