All Turtles Message Board

Debbie · Guest Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Posts: 2

ive been online looking for an answer to the app. age of my turtle basil is 5 inches so could anybody tell me his app. age. or help me figure it out please

STRAYKINGFISHER · Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:49 am Post subject:

Unless you know the exact day of birth, it is nearly impossible to tell their age, there are some people that think that you can tell their age from the growth rings, but a turtle can have a good year and grow two rings or more, yet on other times it could have a bad year and only grow one or maybe not at all, so sorry, I doubt anyone can help in that area. Sad

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Kitty · Level 3 Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 100 Location: Tracy, Ca

STRAY is so right, all my therries have been shot to XXXX...
I use to go by size till I gave a friend one of my babies, he way over spoils him....(being nice for over feeding) in a year it's 5" easy..mine out of the same clutch are about 2 to 3. but here is something else his turtle doesn't have fat...And the darn thing is just about as round as it is wide looks very close to a base ball...lol it's swims fine. I thought no way so I gave him 2 more, and I uped my feeding a little, the same thing baby base balls. So I did a little more checking and asked the family how offten he really is feeding. everytime he sees him....good thing he works 40 hours a week.
Years ago we counted rings, but research shows what STRAY said, in fact some books refer to growth rings as stress rings. also boys are usally smaller than girls.. all any one can do is just give an aprox. It seems no one really can even come up with how long they live. My Dad has had turtles before I was born and now I have them, and he got them out of the wild, and they were large my mom said, at least 10" she did't think they were smaller, maybe a littl bigger. again just a guess. In the wild I would think catching food is a bit harder so growth would be slower, so no telling how old they were when he cought them. He had them a few years
before me, maybe 5 years before me, He just always said" Before your time" and your brothers were little guys", my brothers are 7 and 8 years older...So here we go again just a guess on how long they have been in the family about 52 years, and still laying eggs, in fact they just started, about 5 years ago, or that we know about any way.
Sorry I couldn't be more help, but you are just going to have to guess,
Good Luck!
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There is nothing more exciting than to see baby Turtles, popping up out of the ground, or to find them wondering across the yard.