I picked about 3 quarts of these fat fuzzy caterpillars off my azalea hedge in the past 2 days. Plopped them in soapy water then dumped them out under the bird feeder. Anyone know if birds will eat these bad boys?

I read on another forum that they don't cocoon but they dig into the ground (after I had dumped them on the ground. ugh)

Welcome to ATP! Unfortunately, I can't find any reference to birds dining on this particular caterpillar. These guys are unique in that they tend to feed side by side in a group and, when disturbed, raise their heads or rears in unison. They are also most active in August and September. It is believed that they only lay eggs once per year in the spring (80-100 eggs on the back of a leaf) so there is only one generation produced annually. Handpicking is an effective treatment (as is Bt and the standard pesticides) but you may want to toss them in a bin next time. In addition to azaleas, they are also known to chew on red oaks, blueberry bushes, and the occasional apple tree. Again, to ATP. Perhaps someone else knows if birds will eat them.

Trux, let us know if the birds dined on these guys or left them alone. Sometimes personal observation is the best information.

It looks like the ants are the only thing interested so far. My poor azaleas. They devoured every leaf on one of the bushes before I caught on to them.

They do that but the Azaleas just grow new ones. Caterpillars are good bait. Do you like to fish?

Birds eat most insects they should eat them .

HI

Trux4: I have a lot of Azaleas, but I have never seen those creatures on them. Now I will have to get out my Butterfly book and see if I can identify same.

Distilled water kills them I
think

Interesting!! But they are said to be two inches long. As the Moderator said, BTK is the answer, a natural pesticide from the soil, available everywhere, spray on undersides of leaves, couple weeks in a row, when they ingest it, it eats their stomach lining out. Harmless to everything else, except for rose slugs, and some other caterpillars. Try it!

Did it work?

The distilled water?

Frank and Sister20, the last previous post in this thread was five years ago so perhaps the original participants have moved on now. But I can't think of any reason why distilled water would kill anything.

I'm Sister20. I got locked out of my account:( Try it! I killed some with it:)
It will work. If you notice them start to get smaller they are going into there cocoon. Don't be fooled by it! Just spray it on the leaf:) Oh,sooby, Look it up. There should be some info about it. Frank said he read about it in a butterfly book. It really works:)!

Oh,sooby please write back:) I would like to discuss this further:)

Hello

Oh, sooby, Yes i didn't notice how old this all is:) Thanks for showing me that:) Promise if you don't belive me I am Sister20 and would love to keep discussing this whole matter:)