Age range of the Mane Six

I hope to have a productive discussion to find the most logical answer to about how old the main six are, using any canon lore.

On to our first piece of evidence!

Exibit A

"For whom the Sweetie Belle toils"
For those of you who didn't know, faust canon stated they only live to be around 30. this part of conon was shattered durring "For whom the sweetie belle toils" for her dipiction of being five years old. Lets do the math:

For horses:
Life span; 30
Sweetie Belle's age at that time; 5 or 1/6

For humans:
Life span; 80
1/6 of 80 = 13.333^

This point proves that equestrian ponies Have around the same life span to humans

One more point of data that points to the relative age of the Mane Six is Rarity In "For whom the Swettie Belle toils". Rarity is clearly a full grown mare at this point. now to find her age from that we need another point to go off of.

Exibit B

"Cutie Mark Chronicles"

Cutie mark Chronicles give us the clearest indication of the Mane Six' relitive age. It shows them when they got their cutie marks at roughly the same time.

So lets look at Apple Jack. When she is leaving there is only Big Mac and Granny smith to see them off. This shows that their parents are likely already gone and it can be assumed that Apple Bloom has already been born. Seeing as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle are around the same age we can safely say that in five years time rarity would be a full grown mare. Furthermore, because the Mane Six are around the same age as the CMC at the time they got their cutie marks and rarity in five years would be full grown at the time Sweetie Belle turns five its safe to assume that the CMC are about 10-12 years old.
Now given the 5-6 year gap between Sweetie Belles 5th birthday and the current show, that means that Rarity is around 10-12 years older than Sweetie Belle.

So leaves the CMC to be about 10-12 as we expected
and leaves all the Main six except for Fluttershy within 20-23 years old.
Why not Fluttershy? Well if you get a good look at her in the "Cutie Mark Chronicles" she is somewhat bigger than rainbow dash and the others at flight camp. It can be assumed that she may have been held back and is slightly older than rainbow dash the seemingly smallest of the filly Mane Six. By the difference in size lets say 2 years.

Now we have it:

The CMC is 10-12
The Mane Six is 20-24

Now for the other characters.

Shining Armor, Cadence, and Cheerliee:

Looking back into the comics which are considered completely canon by DHX, in issue #12 we see Cheerilee (Identical to the picture she showed her class in "Call of the Cutie"), Cadance and Shining Armor all attending a prom which is and event that normally take place for juniors and seniors only. From that we can get an age range of 16-18. Twilight is also in this comic clearly without her cutie mark. So lets say this is Twilight at about 10-11. That means that Shining, Cadence and Cheerilee are about 5-8 years older than the Mane Six placing their age at 27-30 years old.

Spike:
Spike was born 10-11 years before "Cutie Mark Chronicles". Its been a year since nightmare moon at the start of season four. Spike must be 10-12 years old.

Big Mac:
Developmentally, Big Mac looks quite similar to Fluttershy. So we can place his age range a year above Fluttershy at 22-25 years old.

The exact age of the main six is yet to be proven. all we know is Fluttershy is the oldest, Rainbow Dash is seemingly the youngest, and that Pinkie pie is one year younger than Fluttershy.

I hope this information was helpful to those of you who need to complete head canons, need a reference to writing or just like to know this stuff. But please remember that I consider this a theory and am willing to change and adapt it as new information becomes available

Comments

[Scootareader]

(Equestria Girls was confirmed non-canon)

That is an urban myth, my friend. The tweet that spawned the rumor is this one:
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/t1.0-9/1010735_538280849564674_701562668_n.png
This was tweeted, as you can see, on the 16th of June, 2013... the day that Equestria Girls was released to general audiences in movie theaters (and the day that I watched it). I had an ear to the ground in the news scene, and there was a general fandom freakout, so Meghan tweeted a clarification right over here (some time before EqG was released, mind you). EqG is canon, but it was stated as being separate from season 4. Season 5 does not have any promises at this point; we will wait and see if it impacts canon at all.

Why not Fluttershy? Well if you get a good look at her in the "Cutie Mark Chronicles" she is somewhat bigger than rainbow dash and the others at flight camp. It can be assumed that she may have been held back and is slightly older than rainbow dash the seemingly smallest of the filly Mane Six. By the difference in size lets say 2 years.

Fluttershy could have been a year ahead of Rainbow Dash in Flight Camp; there's nothing saying that all the ponies in Flight Camp have to be the same educationally, and I highly doubt the program only lasts a year. I'd guess, based on how little Rainbow Dash had learned about herself during the Cutie Mark Chronicles, she was a first-year and Fluttershy was a second-year. There's no reason why not.

EDIT: Let me clarify that I'm not saying she can't be 2 years ahead of Rainbow Dash; that's entirely possible. They don't need to be the same year at Flight Camp, though. I consider it like preschool; you don't need to take it, but it makes you a better flier, and you can take it any number of years.

the comics which are considered completely canon by DHX

It's not often that anyone invokes the comics for canon; I commend you for doing your research.

Developmentally, Big Mac looks quite similar to Fluttershy.

I get the feeling you're making a reference to the best ship here.

Another development of note:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-SpEQkJNI5WI/Uu5Q7BMHqrI/AAAAAAABsDQ/-VkMM32RJIs/s1600/54.PNG
We see here 21 candles on Rainbow Dash's cake. The general assumption is that this is her 21st birthday... though, there are usually candles distributed evenly on a cake, so it's possible she's somewhere around 30-35 years old. I find that much harder to believe than 21 years old.

Overall, I think you did a pretty good job formulating theories and projecting ages. The ages you've provided seem pretty spot-on.

[WindTrotter]

2314842 i make the assumption of two years difference as a maximum between rainbow and fluttershy. All of the ages are approximate of the min-max because we cant be completely sure.

[Scootareader]

2314871
I see how it is. Focus on the Fluttershy-Rainbow Dash disparity and nothing else I said.

[WindTrotter]

2314891 no I read everything. but you should just call me on Skype so we can talk about it.

[Scootareader]

2314916
Were I not busy at work at the moment and busy with my girlfriend whenever I get home, I would be happy to. My girlfriend will be heading home in a week, so sometime after that, it's entirely possible I may be up for a phone call.