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Teeth Aging Texas Hill Country Deer

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    #61
    Originally posted by jshouse View Post
    can we see cam pics of the bucks?
    We have a VERY strict policy of NOT posting pics on the interweb. Jaw bones is all I'll post. I guess I could crop off the horns, but I'll have to see if I have that kind of time.

    Originally posted by Capt.Brown View Post
    Those are some OLD deer, so at 5 & 6 years old they didn't have there best set of horns? And they didn't go down hill they got better?????
    In our area, they rarely have their best set of horns at 5 or 6. They are just getting started at those ages. The magic year seems to be 8. These were both surprising at 10. Or at 11, whatever they were.

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      #62
      Good thread Chance. I think it's been 10+ years since we have put any stock into tooth aging on our place too. And even before that, it never made much sense to me when some dude would stick his hand in a deer's mouth, or look at a jawbone, and go "uhhhh...he's 5."

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        #63
        Originally posted by GarGuy View Post
        Chance my east tx experience is exactly like yours. Always older than the tooth wear charts say. Always
        We killed another one this year that we did not have history with. Figured him at a 6 year old based off body characteristics. For horns he wasn't "much punkin" so we shot him. His teeth showed older than both of these. Who the heck knows how old he actually was.



        All we can do as hunters/managers is make educated guesses. NOTHING replaces history with a deer, except maybe ear tags. Sending teeth off for cementum annuli testing is simply no more accurate than our guesses. At least in my experience. My conclusion (take that and a nickel, and you will have $.05) is that aging by teeth is worthless. And it doesn't matter where. I'm always up for learning anything I can about deer. If y'all have comments about anything I have said or posted, throw it out there. Let's discuss. That's what this thread is all about.

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          #64
          Originally posted by Chance Love View Post
          We have a VERY strict policy of NOT posting pics on the interweb. Jaw bones is all I'll post. I guess I could crop off the horns, but I'll have to see if I have that kind of time.



          In our area, they rarely have their best set of horns at 5 or 6. They are just getting started at those ages. The magic year seems to be 8. These were both surprising at 10. Or at 11, whatever they were.
          gotcha

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            #65
            Originally posted by Chance Love View Post
            We killed another one this year that we did not have history with. Figured him at a 6 year old based off body characteristics. For horns he wasn't "much punkin" so we shot him. His teeth showed older than both of these. Who the heck knows how old he actually was.



            All we can do as hunters/managers is make educated guesses. NOTHING replaces history with a deer, except maybe ear tags. Sending teeth off for cementum annuli testing is simply no more accurate than our guesses. At least in my experience. My conclusion (take that and a nickel, and you will have $.05) is that aging by teeth is worthless. And it doesn't matter where. I'm always up for learning anything I can about deer. If y'all have comments about anything I have said or posted, throw it out there. Let's discuss. That's what this thread is all about.
            based on info from a buddy of mine with deer pens, CA isn't 100%, but usually not off by more than a 1 in either direction, based on known age from deer in the pens, where they literally know the day it was born.

            the outlier to this, is that they also don't have 8 year old deer in the pens.

            maybe that's why some of these deer lived until they were 9-10, because they had some lifestyle that dictated minimal annual wear of their teeth... who knows.

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              #66
              Thanks for sharing. I've always followed the "book" and really didn't know any better. Picked up a new place this year, took my first 150" plus thinking he was minimum 7.5 and his teeth looked exactly like your deer #2. Kinda took the wind out of my sails and really made me question jaw aging.

              Interesting note, my dad took a deer off same place who's teeth looked like your #1 deer (I had him minimum 7.5 as well). His deer hit corn/protein daily for the entire year. The deer I took we had a few random pics but never one of him at any type of feeder. Also, there was 1 pound separating them on the hoof, 191 and 192.
              Last edited by PassnItOn; 01-12-2021, 02:35 PM. Reason: additional info

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                #67
                Originally posted by Chance Love View Post



                All we can do as hunters/managers is make educated guesses. NOTHING replaces history with a deer, except maybe ear tags. Sending teeth off for cementum annuli testing is simply no more accurate than our guesses. At least in my experience. My conclusion (take that and a nickel, and you will have $.05) is that aging by teeth is worthless. And it doesn't matter where. I'm always up for learning anything I can about deer. If y'all have comments about anything I have said or posted, throw it out there. Let's discuss. That's what this thread is all about.
                Agreed!

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                  #68
                  You just blew Top of Texas mind. Lol

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                    #69
                    Originally posted by PassnItOn View Post
                    Thanks for sharing. I've always followed the "book" and really didn't know any better. Picked up a new place this year, took my first 150" plus thinking he was minimum 7.5 and his teeth looked exactly like your deer #2. Kinda took the wind out of my sails and really made me question jaw aging.

                    Interesting note, my dad took a deer off same place who's teeth looked like your #1 deer (I had him minimum 7.5 as well). His deer hit corn/protein daily for the entire year. The deer I took we had a few random pics but never one of him at any type of feeder. Also, there was 1 pound separating them on the hoof, 191 and 192.
                    Same happened to me this year, shot a buck I was confident was 7.5, teeth showed 5 or so.

                    Comment


                      #70
                      Originally posted by Chance Love View Post
                      All we can do as hunters/managers is make educated guesses. NOTHING replaces history with a deer, except maybe ear tags. Sending teeth off for cementum annuli testing is simply no more accurate than our guesses. At least in my experience. My conclusion (take that and a nickel, and you will have $.05) is that aging by teeth is worthless. And it doesn't matter where. I'm always up for learning anything I can about deer. If y'all have comments about anything I have said or posted, throw it out there. Let's discuss. That's what this thread is all about.

                      Really good post/discussion and thanks for sharing.

                      As you and others I think the old tooth wear is pretty useless. We shoot a lot of deer in south Texas and there doesn't seem to be any consistency on them. I would take my chances with judging them on the hoof versus tooth wear if I had to. Even that is just an educated guess without history.

                      A few seasons ago I started sending teeth to Deer Age for cementum testing. I know there is an OLDER study showing that isn't accurate and the stigma, that goes with that method as well. I just like to find out for myself.

                      The majority of the deer we had a pretty decent idea of age...Several years of trail cam pics and seeing them from year to year. To date they have hit an age we all landed on or were off by a year. I have also sent some that I had no history on, but just had a guess, really just for grins. So far all but one of those hit about what almost exactly what we expected. It was a very old showing deer on the hoof and jaw that we had no history on that I know of. Deer Age landed on 8.5, so still old, but I was thinking 10 years or more. All that said who really knows as maybe he was just sick or unhealthy for whatever reason.

                      I have no idea if they have improved their methods from years past or not. It very well may not be accurate, since our deer are not tagged. That said I just wanted to share a positive experience with cementum method.

                      Comment


                        #71
                        Sorry Chance Love and GarGuy. Just now seeing.

                        Based on tooth wear method
                        #1 - 5 or 6 yrs. Judgement call on tooth #4 being fully dished and tooth #6 dentin width.
                        #2 - 3 or 4 yrs. Judgement call on dentine of tooth #5
                        #3 - really old, officially 8 yrs

                        We already know that tooth wear has limitations and inaccuracies, and it's important to keep those in mind when making management decisions. I will say, that only on exceptionally rare occasions have I witnessed a high degree of discrepancy. That is, when I walk up to age a dead buck and note its body conformation, I'm rarely surprised by what I see in tooth wear. Rarely, but it does happen. However, I have never witnessed such a severe degree as you mentioned (10 yr old deer with 3 yr old teeth).

                        As I've mentioned in other threads, one of the driving issues is people making age declarations without having a clear understanding of the methodology. For example, at time of this writing, 26 people have provided ages to your quiz. Of those, 11 were correct (42%) and 15 were incorrect (58%), based on the method.

                        Now, if it's just "worthless," "useless," "guesses," then we should expect any data set, that is based on tooth wear, to be totally random. But, that's not what we see. Instead we see results like the attached chart of 116 harvested bucks (actual compiled data). Ages all based on tooth wear by individuals who understand the method. These hunters use body confirmation and history to make harvest decisions. If it's worthless, why do we see peaks at 5, 6, and 7 yrs old?

                        Still not convinced? Look at the charts for beam, spread, and base circumference. I'm not certain on the sample size, but possibly near 1,000 bucks over about a 20 year period. Region doesn't matter. All those measurements are categorized into ages based solely on tooth wear. Explain why we see peaks at 5, 6, and 7 yrs old if tooth wear is meaningless.

                        Hmm....

                        The method was developed based on the fact that tooth #4 erupts as a fawn and is the oldest molar in the deer's jaw, tooth #5 erupts at about 1 yr old, and tooth #6 at about 2 years old. Universal criteria were developed (i.e. the relationship between dentine and enamel width) to remove as much subjectivity as possible so that everyone should get the same answer, thus creating an objective method. A method that can be objectively tested. That is, I could train 10 individuals and they should age 100 jaws nearly the same.

                        What has yet to be scientifically established is the methodology of following a buck over consecutive years based on antler confirmation. I've done it a lot (or so I think), yet that remains highly subjective and not testable. There is no universal criteria; rather, I have to convince you or you just have to take my word for it. How many heated discussions have you witnessed of some guys huddled over a computer screen looking at trailcam photos? The individual who claims correctness has no objective criteria, but is usually just the most domineering personality of the group.
                        Attached Files

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                          #72
                          T.o.T---Unless I missed something in your post, it seems like all of your examples are based off what the teeth show per the "book". That is the problem. I know what the book says a particular jaw shows, it just rarely correlates with the actual age in reality. I don't have fancy charts, just a lot of years of seeing it over and over again.

                          With the first jaw I posted, someone could have looked at that buck in the field and called him an 8 year old, and then THOUGHT they misjudged him by two years based on teeth. With our history of the buck, we KNOW the teeth were off by at least 4 years.

                          Same for the second jaw. Someone with no history probably would have aged him at 5 this year, then been just a little upset that his teeth show 4. But in reality the teeth were off by 6 years, per the book. They would have never known he was 10+ because he didn't have the typical body characteristics and the teeth didn't show it.

                          Those are perfect examples of why I think your data is flawed. Your data is based off "books", not so much off real world situations. That's not any kind of personal knock on you, it's just what I think after being involved in the industry for a pretty long time.

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                            #73
                            If I’m reading his post right, he is suggesting that hunter’s abilities to keep track of particular deer over the years, and judge their age via body traits, are what is wrong. And the teeth are what is right, more often than not.


                            Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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                              #74
                              7, 5 and 10+

                              Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

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                                #75
                                Want to have a fun time? Next time you are at your dentist.... have a discussion how we age deer by tooth ware, he will laugh in your face. Same as people, dogs, deer you name it... everything is different. I’ve never been huge on tooth ware but I know we have to go by something. Sandy soils, hill country, Midwest diets, so many factors.
                                Like others have said, the most accurate way is watching a young buck at 2/3 for years and getting a solid guesstimate of the age class he might be.
                                I have killed numerous bucks I watched for multiple years that I know for a fact were 6 plus to have their teeth show 4.5
                                Last edited by James; 01-12-2021, 08:45 PM.

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