Teeth Aging Texas Hill Country Deer

[Jason Slocum]

So if you regularly kill bucks that you know to be 10-14 years old but the buck's teeth show 4 years old...

Then explain to me the biological mechanisms by which tooth wear suddenly ceases at age 4. That is, if you consistently kill bucks whose teeth indicate younger than reality, then what exactly is going on that makes the deer's teeth suddenly stop wearing at the same rate than it was wearing from fawn to 4 years old? What happens, biologically and physiologically, that makes those teeth stop wearing at that rate?

I have a few guesses/theories/opinions:

Older deer just learn how to eat better and quit chewing on rocks/dirt. I would assume that as deer get older they get better at feeding and pick up less non food items (rocks/dirt) and become more efficient at eating.

I would also guess that as deer age and become mature they have a more balanced diet and different nutritional needs (think about puppy chow and adult dog foods for example). They also learn and may have a food preference eating more protein because it tastes good, and provides more nutrients than just corn (soft pellets) vs corn (hard).

I would also assume that as deer mature and reach a certain body size (say 80lbs, 120lbs, 150lbs, 150lbs+) they require different caloric intakes to survive vs thrive and learned the best and most efficient ways to meet their dietary needs (eating 5 lbs of deer corn picked up off the ground along with rocks and other non food items to get the same nutrients as 1lb of protein pellets eaten out of a protein feeder = food only no rocks).

Very interesting discussion.

Jason Slocum

[Daddy D]

To back up what GarGuy and Chance has said, and as mentioned earlier in the thread, we also abandoned the tooth thing over 10 years ago (not that we were ever married to it, but we at least thought about it and looked into it on certain deer).

It’s mostly pointless because it would take too long to document/explain on this website...but I’ve got buckets of jawbones saved over the years,* from tagged deer *, that completely blows the teeth-aging nonsense out the water. Jawbones ranging from 4 year olds to 14 year olds. Pasture and pens. I’m not sure I have E V E R ripped a jawbone out of a tagged deer and had it correlate to any “book” or “chart” that the experts love to adhere to. Just wanted to toss my hat in the ring...

[Daddy D]

The only reason I stress the tagged deer is: it kinda stops TOTs speculation about people being incapable of tracking deer from year to year.

[GarGuy]

To back up what GarGuy and Chance has said, and as mentioned earlier in the thread, we also abandoned the tooth thing over 10 years ago (not that we were ever married to it, but we at least thought about it and looked into it on certain deer).

It’s mostly pointless because it would take too long to document/explain on this website...but I’ve got buckets of jawbones saved over the years,* from tagged deer *, that completely blows the teeth-aging nonsense out the water. Jawbones ranging from 4 year olds to 14 year olds. Pasture and pens. I’m not sure I have E V E R ripped a jawbone out of a tagged deer and had it correlate to any “book” or “chart” that the experts love to adhere to. Just wanted to toss my hat in the ring...

And that is science. Results duplicated in multiple location independedly.

[HNT ETX]

So far, all anyone has provided are evasive answers. It's a very simple question, and the answer is so obvious that continued evasion only further reveals entrenched positions.

Is it possible that you have an entrenched position?

[Daddy D]

And that is science. Results duplicated in multiple location independedly.

Correct! I was going to say the same earlier: if multiple ranches, unbeknownst to each other, are coming to the same conclusions, it starts to lend credence to the theory. And I’ll qualify too: we didn’t set out to blow any theories out of the water. Quite the opposite. From about 2001-2007 we were good little comrades and followed the books on teeth. At times it was tough to make sense but we continued. Then starting in 2008 with tagged deer it started to become obvious that the teeth data wasn’t helping or making any sense. So we stopped.

[HNT ETX]

I have a few guesses/theories/opinions:

Older deer just learn how to eat better and quit chewing on rocks/dirt. I would assume that as deer get older they get better at feeding and pick up less non food items (rocks/dirt) and become more efficient at eating.

I would also guess that as deer age and become mature they have a more balanced diet and different nutritional needs (think about puppy chow and adult dog foods for example). They also learn and may have a food preference eating more protein because it tastes good, and provides more nutrients than just corn (soft pellets) vs corn (hard).

I would also assume that as deer mature and reach a certain body size (say 80lbs, 120lbs, 150lbs, 150lbs+) they require different caloric intakes to survive vs thrive and learned the best and most efficient ways to meet their dietary needs (eating 5 lbs of deer corn picked up off the ground along with rocks and other non food items to get the same nutrients as 1lb of protein pellets eaten out of a protein feeder = food only no rocks).

Very interesting discussion.

Jason Slocum

Some people just have good teeth, stands to reason deer some deer do also.

I would also think that as the herd gets healthier, I would think there overall health improves, including teeth. Surely protein and medicated feed would have an impact on health and tooth decay? Possibly?

Also, hunters these days pour out TONS and TONS of feed, i would think that deer are not forced to hint and peck like they have in the past. So overall they have a better diet and likely less tooth wear.

But, for whatever reason, tooth aging does not match what I know. I have known almost all of the deer i have killed as of late and i dont recall a single instance where tooth wear was correct. If you kill an older buck and have not followed him over the years with trails cameras you will never know the age. Only way to even estimate a range would be if he was 3.5 or less or 9-10 or older and you could say definitely young or definitely old. Teeth probably show thw same thing, definitely old or definitely young, so why even bother with the teeth? If you crack open their mouth and say he is 5 or 6, that is no better than my guess based on body appearance.

[GarGuy]

Correct! I was going to say the same earlier: if multiple ranches, unbeknownst to each other, are coming to the same conclusions, it starts to lend credence to the theory. And I’ll qualify too: we didn’t set out to blow any theories out of the water. Quite the opposite. From about 2001-2007 we were good little comrades and followed the books on teeth. At times it was tough to make sense but we continued. Then starting in 2008 with tagged deer it started to become obvious that the teeth data wasn’t helping or making any sense. So we stopped.

So who are you gonna believe? The teeth or your lying eyes???

[mgalbreath39]

Side note...I have ALWAYS wanted to tag every spike we see and chronicle them over the years. And I'm still game for that study.

Now this is a study I'd like to see happen!!

Let's say you have a chance to get on 1 of 2 leases. Each lease is 30,000 ac. They are 20 miles apart in the "Golden Triangle" of Texas. Prices are the same. Hunter density is the same. Tooth wear (from 100 bucks) on Ranch #1 averages 4 years old. Tooth wear on Ranch #2 (from 100 bucks) averages 7 years old.
Which lease would you prefer?

I'll play along and I feel like it's probably a pretty obvious answer. Ranch #2. If I go by "the book" the average deer taken is 7 yrs old and if I don't then the average deer taken could be 9-10+. Either way really solid age management in my opinion.

To me when it comes down to it nothing about the tooth wear is a deciding factor on when to harvest a buck. By the time you get a chance to look at the teeth that deer's not getting any older. Yes tooth wear is going to be a sign of a older deer and yes a bucks antlers are going to get bigger as they get older to a point. I do think that tooth wear is a cool characteristic and helps add to the story of a individual buck but would also not want it tied to my ability to be on a lease. Tell me we are going to try to develop some history with a buck and make management decisions off of that and I'm in.

Enjoying following along with the conversation. Good Stuff!

[jason86]

I know most people are not killing 3-4 year olds as apart of their management plan, but has anyone ever killed a known “young” deer that has shown older teeth?

[GarGuy]

I know most people are not killing 3-4 year olds as apart of their management plan, but has anyone ever killed a known “young” deer that has shown older teeth?

Absolutely not

[Chance Love]

Well I'm liking the new-comers to this thread. And I like all of the discussion whether I agree with it or not. Discussion is good.

I know most people are not killing 3-4 year olds as apart of their management plan, but has anyone ever killed a known “young” deer that has shown older teeth?

Not to a great extent. We have killed a three year old (our field guess) here and there that their teeth showed 4, and some 4 year olds (again, by our field guesses) and the teeth showed a year older than we thought. But I can't recall one ever being off more than that. We have certainly never killed what we thought was a 3 year old and the teeth showed 7.

For the record we kill VERY few deer believed to be less than 4 years old.

[jason86]

Well I'm liking the new-comers to this thread. And I like all of the discussion whether I agree with it or not. Discussion is good.




Not to a great extent. We have killed a three year old (our field guess) here and there that their teeth showed 4, and some 4 year olds (again, by our field guesses) and the teeth showed a year older than we thought. But I can't recall one ever being off more than that. We have certainly never killed what we thought was a 3 year old and the teeth showed 7.

For the record we kill VERY few deer believed to be less than 4 years old.

And I figured that was the case

[MooseontheLoose]

I’m fascinated at the tenacity FOR the accuracy of tooth wear aging in this thread. IMO, this is the problem taking results from one or a couple of very specific studies and practicing them as management gospel. The same thing happened years ago with the spike study. How many spikes got waxed for how many years because of that study? Years later, that “valid, data-driven, scientific research” proved to be full of holes, just flat wrong, and killing all spikes turned out to be a terrible deer management practice. Many have seen/experienced this same thing with the tooth-wear, that what was once written in stone actually might not be (isn’t) true.

When you have people that hunt all over every region of Texas, Mexico, high fence, low fence, great feed programs, no feed programs, public/private, pen deer/wild deer, etc., all reporting the same exact observations regarding lack of accuracy of tooth-aging deer, there is probably more than a little something to that. Is there a peer-reviewed empirical study to validate it? Not that I’m aware of, but the hundreds and hundreds of bucks seen and followed by the people posting on this thread are a significantly larger sample size than the 54 deer and 140 jaws cited in the Wildlife Society abstract. They also encompass way more of everything mentioned above.

My own experience is consistent with Chance, GarGuy, DaddyD, and the others that have posted in this thread, across multiple hill country and south Texas ranches. Tooth wear is wrong just as much or more than it is right, and nothing beats the history of seeing a deer over time to get a very close or maybe exact age on a deer. In some areas or ranches, deer jaws might actually match what the charts say they should be, but on the places I’ve been, that’s not the case.

I was at a ranch down south this weekend where 4 management bucks were killed. I looked at the jaws at 3 of them, thinking of this thread, and not one jaw matched the age those deer were. They were off by 2+ years (jaws showed younger than actual ages), according to what the charts say they should have shown. 0% accuracy when comparing to the tooth charts. I didn’t get a chance to see jaw #4 but I’d bet money it was in line with the other 3 and didn't match the charts.

This isn’t hunters “not liking what’s in the mouth or what the teeth show,” it’s seeing a deer on camera/in person for 3, 4, 5, or like some of these examples 10+ years, eventually killing that deer, and the jawbone not matching what these charts say it should. Time and time and time again.

I was intrigued and attempted to read the study from Wildlife Society Bulletin, but they wanted me to register and pay, so all I could find was the abstract. The abstract ToT quoted only used 54 bucks “Using 9 animals/age class, from 2.5 to 7.5 years old” (so no animals older than 7 were evaluated). They found that “Placement within the correct year class was achieved for 48% of male deer, and 90% were classified within 1 year of their actual age.”

The correct age class was only achieved 48% of the time. Coinflip odds at best. The same odds as accurately aging a deer based on a couple trail cam photos. Add to that, no old deer were evaluated, the 140 jaws they validated their data against with were all from the same location, and it’s no wonder they found what they found. They created a formula from a specific population, validated it back against that population, and found it to be accurate. Go figure.

Research has it's place and helps gain insight into different areas, but you can't discredit the thousands of hours of deer observation, hundreds of thousands of trail cam photos, and decades of experience and testimony shared on this thread, just because there isn't a peer-reviewed empirical study to validate what we're saying.

[East6101]

Very good info and great discussion