Is there a way to tell the age of a python?

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CaptainRatbag

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I dont mean its date of birth, but a ballpark educated guess? Just wondering if they show any changes to show their aproximate age or stage of life adult, old adult..... geriactric etc.

The obvious clue is size of course, but is there any way to gain clues on roughly how old they are? I ask because I get some wopper coastals up here, I would like to know if they are old or just well fed :lol:
 
Absolutely no way to tell - growth is almost entirely dependent on the amount of food consumed, and animals from the same clutch can vary in size enormously because of that, and by a factor of up to 50-60% in 12 months.

Wild animals grow far more slowly because they don't eat as often, and they brumate from their first year, which cuts out 5-6 months of feeding. You can bet that very large wild Carpets are quite old, I'd estimate some around here to be 20-30 years old.

Jamie
 
You could cut it in half at its thickest point and count the circles! :lol:


Please no one try this!!!!!:facepalm:
 
Absolutely no way to tell - growth is almost entirely dependent on the amount of food consumed, and animals from the same clutch can vary in size enormously because of that, and by a factor of up to 50-60% in 12 months.

Wild animals grow far more slowly because they don't eat as often, and they brumate from their first year, which cuts out 5-6 months of feeding. You can bet that very large wild Carpets are quite old, I'd estimate some around here to be 20-30 years old.

Jamie

It would depend on where the animals are found though. Some of the carpets i have seen around SEQLD have looked like escaped pets they are so big and fat. Lots of food around the burbs also. I would also doubt that snakes living around the suburbs would ever get to 20 years old. They could of course, but dodging cars, shovels, dogs etc for 20 years would be a big effort.
 
It's a real problem with reptiles not being able to tell the age .
The problem you get is some are great feeders and others are a little slow so they grow at different rates makes it very difficult.
Good luck with this one LOL
 
No way of ever telling however if you roughly gauged there size someone that knows a lot about coastals and been breeding them for a long time could roughly give you an age
 
No way of ever telling however if you roughly gauged there size someone that knows a lot about coastals and been breeding them for a long time could roughly give you an age

There is no way you could ever compare captive bred with wild caught, and even withing captive bred cohorts there is a vast array of sizes for siblings. You couldn't even give a rough guess.

Jamie
 
Have it probed - no one could tell you that it's even an Olive from those photos, let alone the sex. Your signature says it's a female, why are you waiting to get it probed?

Jamie
 
Waiting for my appointment at my vet....i'm not going to probe it...i am too in-experienced at this point and i don't want to cause my olive any harm. Anyway thanks Jamie, the breeder said it was female but i want to be sure myself.

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Is that a rhetorical question Cathy? No? Since the question in this thread is about how to tell age i would assume it was about age rather than the sex, i stated that i was asking a similar question wanted to know if my olive was a female or male rather than the age of my olive, did make a separate thread but no luck.
 
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I once had a Cultural heritage officer tell me he could age Womas just by lifting up its tail... he said they grow a new anal scale every month. I just nodded my head :)
 
One way of working out a rough estimate of the maturity is by looking at the thickness (volume/fullness) of the scales. If they're especially thick along the spine it means there has been a lot of shedding and not as much growth relative to the shedding. This way I could tell the difference between a 4 foot yearling and a 4 foot 5-year-old woma, at least that's been my experience.

Using this method you can tell the difference between a young snake and an older more mature one, but definitely not the age.
 
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