Something like cabbage worms on my mom's plants.

[Moochie]

I've been looking and searching for the type of cabbage worm that's taking a fancy to my mom's tomato plants but I can't find the exact one. It looks like a cabbage worm, they get big and chunky, and they have a red barb on their butt. Anyone know what type is? And what it turns into? If location helps I live in the hot desert.
Also, are they safe for chickens to eat? I assume you gotta cut off the red barb... I've put some of the big chunky ones with my chickens and they aren't interested in eating them, in fact they're more freaked out by them! They surround the worms and make erp noises.

 

[Bunnylady]

Tobacco Hornworm. Here's a bit more if you want to read about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manduca_sexta

 

[Moochie]

Oh yes thank you! Tobacco?

 

[Bunnylady]

Oh yes thank you! Tobacco?

Tobacco and tomato are fairly closely related, so critters that can eat one may eat the other. There is a closely related moth, the Tomato Hornworm, that looks very similar, but the stripes on the caterpillars are a little bit different and the horn is black, not red.

 

[Moochie]

I see, I have tobacco hornworms. My mom sprayed her plants with some stuff that kills on contact and the creepy things were going crazy from it. They really defoliated the top of the tomatoes...

 

[Bunnylady]

If your mom sprayed them with anything, you don't want to feed them to the chickens.

Cool (but disgusting) fact: there are tiny wasps that lay their eggs in hornworms. When they hatch, the larvae of these wasps feed on the insides of the caterpillar (sounds like a sci-fi movie script!). They also excrete a hormone that keeps the worm from going to the next stage of its development, the pupa. Parasitised worms may get huge, like 4" long (ugh!) When the wasp larvae are mature enough, they emerge from the worm's skin and spin tiny cocoons, from which the wasps will emerge in a few days. A worm that has been fed on like this will be unable to complete its life cycle, so it will die soon after the wasps emerge.

If you see a hornworm that looks like this, hard as it may be, the best thing to do is to not kill it! Those little white things on it are wasp cocoons. That worm is a "dead worm crawling," and it is carrying the parasites that will kill more of its kind with it.

 

[Moochie]

I didn't see any like that. After my mom sprayed the stuff the following day they were on the ground dead. I didn't give any to the chickens.