Learning to age teeth so why not another age thread

[Mjjust]

Son and I both shot a couple of cull bucks recently off a friends place and we are just starting to try to learn to age by teeth. Don’t have any real need other than just for our own knowledge. Anyway here are the teeth. What do you guys think is the age. “A” is my son’s and “B” is mine. My estimate is A is 3.5 and B is 4.5 but possibly 5.5. What does the GS think?

[RMW]

A- 3.5
b- 7.5

[Chance Love]

A= 5
B= 6 on one side and maybe 7 on the other side

Disclaimer...aging by tooth wear will only tell you what a “book” says for age. In the real world it means little to nothing. But they are still fun to look at.

[txtimetravler]

A-4
b-6

[AntlerCollector]

They are older than you think OP

I’d guess
A 4.5 and B 6.5.

[Hix]

4.5
6.5


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[switchbackxt]

A- 3.5
b- 7.5

^^
This

[eastxhunter]

That’s a uh excellent pair of whitetail deer teeth you have there I guess . They uh. Look like all the other white tail deer teeth that are posted daily....

[treestand]

My lease in Kimble County is unfortunately in the CWD monitoring area requiring us to take deer to the check station. The one good thing about this is that age the deer looking at the teeth. The TPWD biologist took the time to give me few pointers the last time I was there. She said the last two molars are the most important for aging. In deer 4 years and younger there is what I will call a ridge on the last molar that is worn away on deer 5+ years old. I can clearly see the ridge in "A" and not in "B" Beyond that it seems to be a matter of educated guessing based on additional wear. I think "A" is probably a 4 year old and "B" is probably 6.

[bboswell]

You can’t age a deer by looking at teeth with any accuracy

[mjhaverkamp]

My buddy shot a deer on a trophy ranch that required the buck to be a 5 year old min before harvest, he brought the buck into camp and the ranch manager cut the jaw bone out, he told my buddy that he had shot a 4 year old in a smart *** tone, my buddy told him " I would like to see you cut the jawbone out of a live deer " thought it was pretty funny, the manager did not have much to say about it. Aging deer on the hoof is pretty tough for me, especially after 4 years old.

[Deerguy]

Using the Severinghaus technique, the first deer is 4.5 and the second is 5.5. Most important thing to look at it the dentine.

On the first deer, the dentine is wider than the enamel on the 1st molar and possibly the second (1 cusp it is, the second is not). This tells you it is at least 3.5 and probably 4.5 (definitely 4.5 if the dentine is wider than the enamel on both cusps). It is not 5.5 as the dentine is not wider than the enamel on the 3rd molar.

For the second deer, the dentine is wider than the enamel on all molars, meaning at least 5.5. But, the 1st molar is not dished out, so not 6.5.

Remember the wear pattern always goes from the front to the back.

[Deerguy]

You can’t age a deer by looking at teeth with any accuracy

Sure you can. But, it is not 100% accurate (most things aren't). Tooth wear is absolutely correlated with age. There is individual-animal variation, but across a large data set, it is a very useful tool. Growth curves for known-aged deer and deer aged by tooth wear come out very consistent. You can always point to individual inaccuracies, but it remains a valid and useful tool for what it is intended.

[Deerguy]

Also forgot to mention that once you've identified that the last premolar is bicuspid, you never even look at the premolars again, just the molars. If the last premolar is tricuspid, it is either a fawn (less than 6 teeth, usually 4 or 3 plus 1 emerging) or a yearling (6 teeth but the lat molar may only be partially erupted).

[Chance Love]

Also forgot to mention that once you've identified that the last premolar is bicuspid, you never even look at the premolars again, just the molars. If the last premolar is tricuspid, it is either a fawn (less than 6 teeth, usually 4 or 3 plus 1 emerging) or a yearling (6 teeth but the lat molar may only be partially erupted).

I agree with Deerguy on this.

And I'll agree that aging by tooth wear can be fairly accurate... on younger deer, maybe up to age 4. After that, I think tooth wear is useless. Fun to look at and compare to what "the books" say, but worthless. I have been in this game for far too long and seen WAY too many jawbones that show an age not anywhere close to what the deer actually was. But I still look at every jaw on every buck we kill, just for fun.