a shovel, brick or your foot is your best defense. Search lubber on here and you'll find many threads on this subject.

Hi Olya,

I do battle with them also. I've learned over time to overcome my fear and squeamishness with them and every morning I survey the garden and stomp any I see. Last year I used Nolo bait which worked very well, but it only works on the baby ones. In my yard they are quite big already this year. Last year I had thousands, this year I would say in the low hundreds. Next year I think I will get the nolo bait again early in the year and be prepared. If you can't stomp, get the nolo bait (it is a biological control and quite safe for you and all other creatures), but unless you still have little ones, it may not work as well as you like. I say get your boots out and stomp!

Anna

I am in the same boat. Thousands were killed last year and this. In the spring I find them erupting from the ground 25 to 50 on a plant. At this stage they are black. By this time of the year they are orange/green and mating. We do lubber patrol twice a day. They make a ratchetting sound with their wings which I believe is a mating call. I search them out till I find where the sound is coming from. You can use long handled lopping shears to cut them in half or stomp them or heavy gloves and behead them. What ever it takes to kill them.

Ewww ... those things are the stuff nightmares are made of - right up there with creepy clowns.

Unless I can get them when they are just emerging I use a pellet gun .... seriously.

Thanks you, everyone!

This year, I did overcome some of mine "squeamishness" and was able to catch dozens and dozens of them when they just emerged. That seemed to have helped a lot. It is the big ones I am terrified off...Even cats wonÂt mess with them, as, I believe, they are poisonous.

Nasty creatures.

Had to complain about them - thanks for the support and the encouraging thoughts :)
Olya

Riddle: What does a Florida garden in late spring sound like? Answer: CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH! You can take that to be the sound of lubbers dining on your prize plants or the sound of my shoes as I stomp them into the pavement!

I hate them, too. But I find the big ones easier to deal with than the little ones which disperse from their clusters in every direction, making it hard to spray or stomp 'em. The big ones are slow because nothing eats them, and they aren't worried. (They don't know about my big shoes coming at them.) They aren't poisonous that I'm aware of, but they do taste bad, apparently.

Here's what I do: I reach out slowly and grab them by the elbows (the bent part of their hind legs which stick up above their backs), put them on the ground and...CRUNCH. I am down to finding only 2 or 3 a day now, because I make sure to catch every single one I come across.

They are purely awful little guys. Honestly, if I saw that birds enjoyed them, I'd probably learn to live with 'em. But I've never seen or heard of ANYTHING that eats them. I try to think of some other good reason for them to be part of the ecosystem, but I haven't come up with one yet. And they are one critter (along with fire ants) that I do NOT want in my garden.

Happy crunching!
Marcia

I read or was told somewhere they are poisonous to animals that's why nothing eats them. Sometimes a young raccoon will eat one and be sick for days. After that they never eat them again. I also heard of a bird that pecks it quick to kill it and then leaves it to dry out the poison and will come back to eat it a day or so later. Of course I forgot which bird. I'd like to import them by the thousands. lol

Katkin, you are correct. I did some searching (you know how curious I am about our critters) and the link below gives lots of good info on lubbers, including the fact that they do have toxic substances in their bodies. I never knew that! Very interesting stuff! Something new learned again today!

Marcia

Here is a link that might be useful: Lubber Info

Olya,
Crunch, crunch is right but they still come back worse than ever. I really dislike them with a passion!!!!

Here's how I round up the lubbers, and works very well. Place a sprinkler or hand water a area where they are known to be eating even if you don't see them. As soon as the foliage gets wet these damn things crawl up to higher areas on the end of branchs,fronds, or the side of a house. They do not like getting wet. By doing this I can round up many of the pest at once instead of only finding one or two on a more casual basis I can round up a lot more and end there cycle of destruction.
This also works very well with the nymphs. The young ones are easy to kill but there are hundreds of them. They don't like water either so after killings as many as I can find I hit the water in the area and up the vegetation they crawl to avoid getting wet. You will notice that these things eggs are laid in the ground in dry areas, not moist.

Lighter and aerosol can.....brick.....shovel.....run them over w/car.....watching them on fire has a sense of satisfaction.....LOL just kidding...

The watering idea is a good one, I will have to try. I use a pair of scissors and chop'em in half. Pretty scary things, especially when you are bending over, look up, and find one within inches of your face! I bet with those mandibles, they could inflict a painful bite.

I have never had so many of these pests as I do this year. I have picked and crunched hundreds of them, it has become a morning ritual. I use my barbecue tongs as they are long, and I pick them off and cruch them. Has anyone found shrubs or things these grasshoppers do not like? Thanks for the tipe about the watering, I actually had just figured that out on my own. A light watering does bring them to the top of the plant.....does anyone know if they eat tomato plants? What is the reason for so many of these this year? Does anyone know? Thanks