As of: March 9, 2024, 2:45 p.m
By: Lisa Metzger
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A surprising chance find in the supermarket turns into a long-standing love of animals: the Reindl-Wilhelms family from Weißenburg has an unusual pet: the toad Frieder.
Weißenburg - When Isabell Reindl wanted to buy a pack of lamb's lettuce in the supermarket more than eight years ago, a little eye winked at her.
When she looked closer, she actually recognized a toad - in the middle of the packaged lamb's lettuce. "That was a shock," the woman from Weissenburg told BR.
However, she didn't complain about the lamb's lettuce.
As a reason, she told the BR: "It was in November, minus 10 degrees outside." She and her son Jasper had thought that if they complained about the lettuce now, it would end up in the compost bin along with the toad.
But the two feared that the toad would not survive there.
Without further ado, Isabell Reindl took the animal and the salad with her – for a total of 69 cents.
Releasing the toad would endanger native species
This is how Frieder – as the toad was ultimately named – found a home with the Reindl-Wilhelms family.
The family went through a lot to be able to stay there permanently.
Because upon closer inspection it turned out that the toad is a midwife toad and comes from Nantes in western France.
Simply releasing them into the wild is not advisable, as an expert told the BR, because that would endanger the local population.
The midwife toad should become a permanent home again in the Reiherbachtal.
© NABU
So it stayed that way: Kröterich Frieder stayed with the Reindl-Wilhelms family.
They even had to officially register the new pet with the Lower Nature Conservation Authority.
This then gave the family permission to care for the midwife toad, otherwise Frieder would have ended up in an amphibian sanctuary.
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Elaborate care for Kröterich Frieder
The Reindl-Wilhelms also had to learn that keeping a toad can be a lot of work.
As they reported to BR, they first asked step by step how to properly keep a midwife toad.
A terrarium with stones and different types of sand, suitable food and a major cleaning two to three times a year, in which even the stones, utensils and sand are boiled to destroy germs.
Everything just to make Frieder feel completely comfortable.
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Family and toad talk with whistling noises
The good care has clearly paid off: the Reindl-Wilhelms have been enjoying living with their Frieder for over eight years now.
The average life expectancy of such amphibians in the wild is only around five years.
During this time, Frieder was not only an enrichment for the two children, daughter Frida and son Jasper, but also for the father of the family, Jan Wilhelm.
He even found a mutual understanding with the toad in the form of short whistles.
“He starts to whistle, then I whistle back, he answers again, it can go on for up to five minutes,” the father told BR.
A pet that definitely not everyone has.
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