i've been thinking........

[TeaNinja]

my dum is somewhere around 5'-5 1/2' i believe. the guy i got my dum from said he's roughly 2 years old, but i've been looking at peoples posts elsewhere and they've said their female dumerils is 4 years old and around 4 1/2 foot. do females grow slower? or is my snake around 5 years old? O.o

[TeaNinja]

is there any way to tell age? i mean, i assume he's almost full grown if he's already 5 1/2 feet.

[Lankyrob]

cut it in half and count the rings? :no::):yes:

Sorry, couldnt resist.

If i am reading right all snakes birthdays are 1st Jan?? In which case an early hatcher could easily have a few months growth on a late hatcher. also snakes like humans grow at different rates. My two young corns hatched within 10 days of each other but one is a good six or eight inches longer.

[Will0W783]

As far as I know, there is no reliable way to tell a snake's age, unless you've had it from a hatchling. The thing is, different people feed their snakes at different rates. A person feeding a snake a large meal once or twice a week (powerfeeding- not good for the snake) can achieve adult size in a year to a year and a half, while someone feeding an appropriate meal every other week might take 2.5-3 years to get to its adult size. Also, snakes will continue to grow throughout their entire lives, so the older the snake, the bigger the snake in a lot of cases. I have a superdwarf retic that was supposedly 3 years old when I got her. Her previous owner had been feeding her 4 live mice at a feeding (way too little food) and she was 6 feet long. I got her on f/t large rats, once every other week, and she is now 8.5 feet and twice as thick, two years later. So she grew significantly despite being at an age where the majority of growth should already have been done.

[Marica]

I did think it odd when I read your original post stating the size and age of your snake. However, having many rescues myself, I've learned not to dwell on actual birthdays as I've had to guess and make up ages and dates of birth for a few of my animals. From all the research I've done on Dums and the many posts from other owners that I've read I would guess your guy to be around 5 years old. Though like Kimberly stated there really is no guaranteed method to determine age by size because of so many various factors. However, Dums are known to be slow growers.

[TeaNinja]

yea that all makes sense, i emailed the guy i got him from, and asked if he was sexed by a vet (because i was considering maybe finding him a mate in a year or two) and he said he never had "him" sexed but he thinks he saw some spurs. and he said on second thought the snake was probably nearer to 3.5 years old