does anyone know the rate at which pets mature, and is there any way to speed it up? i have two pairs in mind for breeding but both are waiting for one of the pets involved to be fully grown and i am singlehandedly the most impatient person i know - i was hoping it would go quickly but i am now on day 5 and only halfway to "adult"

First of all, there are many threads with this exact same question. You can look through this forum to find more in-depth answers.

648 hours to adult
216 hours to adolescent
72 hours to hatchling

Nurtures (applicable only to egglings and hatchlings) and Magical Pies (applicable only to egglings, hatchlings, and adolescents) speed up growth.

Nurture Boosts (not necessary) can be purchased with 3,500 scales (this simply increases the effects of any nurture given). Magical Pies can be purchased from the Diamond Shop for 100 diamonds. Sometimes, they may appear on the Trade Broker.

Listen to Scathreoite. Not me.

Clarifying: Nurture boost does not affect effectiveness of nurtures for the pet, but rather puts pets with the nurture boost to the front of the nurture lists so they're more likely to be nurtured. (It additionally makes the boosted pet give an extra scale to the nurturer)
(the recently released mythic-tier Artifact - Golden Scale that was obtained from completing the easter egg hunt, however, does double nurture effectiveness when nurturing ones own pets, counting each nurture from the owner as basically two rather than one)


Egglings hatch at 72 maturity hours. Nurturing speeds the progression by an hour for every 6 (5?*) correct nurtures (maximum time as eggling: 3 days)
(* the original update thread says 6 but Krin's said it's 5 to some people when answering questions so I dunno)

Hatchlings reach adolescence at 216 maturity hours hours, and speeds progression an hour for every 4 correct nurtures (they also get a bonus stat point for every 8). (maximum time as hatchling: 6 days)

Adolescents reach adulthood at 648 maturity hours. Growth can be sped via use of Magical Pie philter, which adds 144 to the maturity (72 hour cooldown after using a Pie. Maximum of two pies usable per pet because of this.) (Maximum time as adolescent: 18 days)

(total time in days for a newly bred egg that receives no nurtures or pies: 27 days)

As, I see.