I had an interesting experience along this line this year. Hatched out a big clutch of easterns from the offspring of a rehabbed female I worked with a few years back. I had found out previously that I could sometimes excite a hatchling eastern into eating a pink if I put a cricket frog in at the same time and then removed it. I thought it might work with a toad too, but don't often encounter toads here at the right times. Anyway, I did have some fairly big toads that I was using for scent. I was a little concerned that the toads were big enough to try to eat the hognose hatchlings, since they would eat nightcrawlers just as big (by the way I have had no luck getting baby easterns to eat nightcrawlers, but have heard that they occasonally do. Anyway, I put the smallest toad-about half grown, in with the hatcling hognose and scented pink. Came back and found that the hatchling had eaten the huge meal(only the toad). I have no idea how he would have held on and subdued it, even if the alleged "venom" was of some help. He digested it completely and did not regurgite. I always sort of wondered how baby easterns in all habitats could encounter enough baby toads to get started. Apparently the toads don't have to be so small.

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