estimating a tortoise age

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drift2sea

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How can you tell how old a tortoise is ?I have a northern redfoot and a member told me she looks to be 4 to 5 yrs old.How can you look at a tort and estimate the age?
 

Yvonne G

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Hi Dean:

Its purely a guess. You can't count the growth lines, like you do on a tree, because a tortoise may have more than one growth spurt in a year. So those with lots of experience looking at tortoises, may be able to give you a pretty close guesstimate.
 

dmmj

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You can look at it's size and make a guess, but that is all it really is, a guess. Without knowing the hatch date, then it is a guess.
Of course that won't stop us from trying anyway. :)
 

ALDABRAMAN

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dmmj said:
You can look at it's size and make a guess, but that is all it really is, a guess. Without knowing the hatch date, then it is a guess.
Of course that won't stop us from trying anyway. :)

:)...
 

Geochelone_Carbonaria

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This is really a tricky subject ?

It all depends how fast or slow they grow, doesn't it ? And that depends on the environment, food etc...

But what I noticed when looking at and comparing my RF's is that the bone/skeleton does not grow at the same speed as the carapace/plastron does. Two redfoots can be equal in size when comparing their length and weight, but their heads can be very different in size ? My oldest RF has an enormous head compared to others, especially to the young ones, that is almoast the same length and weight ?

This photo was taken yesterday but unfortunately it does not really show what big difference there is between their heads size. The difference is much more visable in reality. One of them is fifteen years old, one is more than double that age and one is even double that age !

RF_1.JPG
 
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