When you spread slurry onto a field why do lots of seagulls come down?

Question

loads of them come why what are they eating!!?

Answer 1

Slurry contains thousands of small worms and other creepy-crawlies which incubate in the heat of the slurry.  The seagulls are omnivores, which means that they eat vegetation or meat.  Therefore, they come either to eat the creatures, or the partly decayed vegetable matter.  Also, the heat creates upward air currents, which help the birds to glide or take off quickly.

The surrounding land, by comparison, is a desert.

Answer 2

Spreading slurry onto a field typically will not have worms or bugs growing in it and it may have some heat built up during storage but once spread on the field quickly loses any measurable level of heat.  The birds are looking for any type of food particulate that may be left over in the slurry.  Dependent upon the amount of storage time that the slurry was held the organic matter would have begun breaking down due to the anerobic oxidation that occurs within the storage area.  The birds are keen to the sound of the tractor in the field and are most likely "trained" to this sound during the fall or spring field work, when the soil is turned over and exposes the earthworms and any other little bugs present to the hungry birds.

Answer 3

they like the smell

Answer 4

there also could be undisgested grain in the slurry, and I am guessing that seagulls might be scavengers of sorts......

Answer 5

Reply #1 was good and likely the correct answer.

Other examples are seagulls:

Following fishing boats

At schools during or just after lunch time.

I bet the birds are so conditioned to the spreader (yours or any others they may have seen in the state in their lifetime) that they will come miles around, swarm and dive down even if you were to just spray air or water on the field.  

They will just be responding to the noise and movement of you and the equipment.  But no treat.

I was fishing and hunting seagulls from my boat on the bay.

On my way back to the dock a warden came by to check for my fishing license.  He saw the dead gulls in my boat, but told me he was not going to make a big deal about it.  Just before departing he said he was curious and wondered what gull tasted like.  I replied "sort of like bald eagle"

Answer 6

I guess that they like to eat sh...aww f***s.

Answer 7

A couple of the posters to your question got the answer half right.  Seagulls come because slurry contains bugs, worms, maggots, grubs, ect that they come to eat.

Also of course the actual spreading of the slurry will drive rodents (mice, voles, ect) and inscectivores (shrews and moles) to the surface.  

Seagulls spend as much (or more) time catching these tastey, furry protien prizes, as they do eating the bugs found in the slurry.

So it's a twofold thing....to eat items spread by the slurry tank, and to eat critters driven to the surface by the actual spreading of the slurry.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years