Hi, Lynn. Welcome to ATP.
July is a tough time to plant out hosta in the Midwest. Ours here seem to grow best during the cooler/wetter months. If I can't get transplants in the ground by mid-May or early June, I usually hold them over in a container about twice as big as the one they were shipped in and set them on the east side of my house for TLC until fall.
Plants are much more apt to be chewed on if they're overly stressed. Many times these creatures are just cleaning up dead and decomposing plant tissues.
