Gooseberry bush eaten alive!

Doing the rounds yesterday I noticed that my gooseberry bush has been stripped of all it's leaves.

I did find a whole bunch of bright green caterpillars, which promptly became chicken treats. 

The bush had been doing really well considering I uprooted it from the garden and put it in a large container.

Any ideas on whether it will survive the winter and sprout again next year?  It has missed out on a good month of sun before the leaves would normally drop

Sounds like gooseberry sawfly 

If there are any caterpillars left on the bush give it a spray with an insecticide or soapy water if you don't use insecticides.

Gooseberry sawfly caterpillars will drop off eventually and then pupate in the soil under the plant.

Next Summer the sawflies will hatch out and lay their eggs on the nearest bush. Try and kill all off the caterpillars, stir up the soil below the bush in the Winter to kill the pupae and allow the birds to get to them.

This will be a second generation of caterpillars now so I would guess that there were some on your bushes earlier. Maybe only a few so you did not notice them but each fly that hatches lays lots of eggs.

I thought the sawfly had missed me this year but they were saving themselves to decimate the new plants i have in pots. I have never seen so many grubs on 6" plants which incidentally have just lost their organic status.