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Is there a way to tell age if not exact then close to?

Bob Bull

THANKS FOR UR HELP

>>Is there a way to tell age if not exact then close to?

usually not. size is the only indicator, and that will vary with how the animal's fed. An animal the size the species hatches at will be a baby, obviously, and--depending on the species--if it's roughly doubled the usual hatch size (which you can find in field guides or in specialty snake books--Markel's kingsnake book, for example, gives hatch sizes for each subspecies--then it might be a yearling. But beyond those generalities it's tough to tell: An animal might reach "adult size" in two years, or three, and then its size won't vary dramatically for the next ten. That's not really unusual, think about humans: Males might reach six feet in height at age 16 and then not get taller for the rest of their lifetimes, 70 years or more. People just have more physical changes (wrinkles, muscle tone, etc, that help s judge the progession of age. With snakes it's ot so easy. So people ofgten describe snakeesz as babies or hatchlings; yearlings or subadults; and adults.

The BEST thing is to buy from someone who can tell you the animal's age. Knowing its hatch date might be merely interesting, but knowing other things about its history could be useful in knowing how to best cae for it.

terry