Jimi was there a particular area of frog skin that was preferable to work with? Easier to manipulate or 'fit'? Im curious!
Good question. Yes, definitely.
So, you know how some little snakes get pretty excited on presentation of a potential food item? I mean, unstarted feeders will often just avoid completely, but once they are feeding well on something you're trying to switch them from, if you put something interesting in front of them they will often investigate it quite vigorously.
The problem comes when they investigate and for whatever reason decide, "meh, not interested". You had them, and you lost them. Frustrating, right?
So the best piece of frog skin for the "pinkie helmet trick", at least the first couple of trials, is the sleeves and pant legs. Just cut all the way around the arms at wrist and shoulder and pull the skin off over the hands. Use forceps. The skin is very tough, and it isn't attached all that strongly. Same drill on the legs. Skin will of course come off inside-out. Pull it back through itself so the outside is back outside. Then cut the full sleeve into 2 or 3 lengths, and pull one of those little "rings" right over a pink's snout and skull like a Hannibal Lecter neckwarmer. Dab a wet finger (you can make a watery slurry or gravy with pulverized frog) all over the skin and the whole pink, and then let it dry a bit so it'll all stick together better. The other rings, you save for next time. Or pull them up over the pink's midsection - that works too. A skin sweater. Yum.
All this trouble is to make sure the oh-so-nice-smelling skin doesn't flake or slide off the pink, and make the underlying pink all of a sudden not so interesting. You make it a coherent unit, not a fall-apart sandwich.
Hope this is clear and useful to someone out there.
I find the best frog for this is a metamorph bullfrog. Perfect size, thick skin, seasonally available in many places. Just go collect a few when they're out there, and pop them in the freezer.
cheers