Brown tail moth caterpillars

[Morlais]

Has anybody else had a problem with these caterpillars we have been plagued with them and a couple of weeks ago my yearling filly was behaving really strange at first we thought it was head shaking but after having her scoped it turned out that she has had a bad reaction to something in the field. When inspecting the field we found loads of cocoons of these toxic caterpillars, my husband started to remove them and the next day he was completely covered in hives which were really itchy so much that he had to go to the doctors. They give of barbs which if you come into contact with them they can cause all sorts of problems. We've now put her into another field and hopefully it should start to calm down. It was very distressing to see her so uncomfortable.

 

[tallyho!]

OMG that is truly horrible!! Have you got any pics of them?

 

[Noodlebug]

My horse had a lump on his lip about three/four weeks ago and after it had gone down he started behaving very oddly in the field flicking head up and down. Has now gone??? We also have four horses at our yard that are covered in lumps????

 

[morlais10]

If you check the hedges of your paddock look out for cocoons when we looked along the hedge there were thousands of caterpillars my husband went along with a blow torch it was horrible we're going to check this autumn for cocoons definetely do not want another year like this one. It must have been bad as it was on all the local news channels and papers regarding these caterpillars and that it was epedemic so just be aware.