Tooth Wear.

[deerwatcher51]

What is your read on these teeth. I think this deer is older than what these teeth show. High fence, protein fed. Thanks for your input.

[GarGuy]

3 year old teeth. No way to know his actual age unless you have history. Older than 3 though

[PondPopper]

3 year old teeth. No way to know his actual age unless you have history. Older than 3 though

Yep or 6.

[RMW]

Yep show 3, let’s see the deer

[deerwatcher51]

Yep show 3, let’s see the deer

He weighed 205, live weight. I had him at 4.5 on the hoof, but thinking he could have been older than that.

[Southernhunters]

3.5-4.5 by dentine….


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[DKW II]

Judging from the tooth wear, he doesn't appear to be very old in my opinion. With that being said, judging a deer's age solely based off the wear of their teeth can be difficult, a few factors come in to play. Deer that are "protein hogs" may not wear as much as deer that solely live off native forage. Hard to be 100% sure.

[RMW]

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He weighed 205, live weight. I had him at 4.5 on the hoof, but thinking he could have been older than that.

Well that ain’t no 3 year old deer

[Chance Love]

Teeth are worthless for aging. Your best "on the hoof" guess is more accurate. Nice buck!

[Top Of Texas]

Oh boy, oh boy! For a bit there I was afraid we were going to miss our annual tooth talk.

First of all, the smile on that young man's face makes the deer's age irrelevant. I stand by that unequivocally!

In terms of self-training ourselves and improving our ability to field age, you are correct to have gone through the process - 1) assessed the deer, 2) made a field determination, 3) killed deer, and now 4) evaluated teeth to ascertain how you did in the field.

Garguy and Love always have a good point, that tooth wear is not appropriate to nail down the exact years of a buck's life. However, tooth wear is excellent for identifying bucks who may, or may not, be expected to be at peak antler size, and for helping train our field judging. Neither is perfect, field nor tooth, but both are most frequently true. But rare anomalies do occur. It has happened to me.

The teeth actually show 2 years old. Looking at the crests (pointy parts) on the tongue side, the dentine (dark stuff) is not as wide or wider than the enamel (white stuff) that surrounds it on #4. This is supported by #3, which shows only faint dentine on tongue side crests. Though the dead buck photo is grainy when zoomed, we can also see that the buck's insicors are quite long and pronounced, another indicator that the buck is in a "younger" age class.

The dead buck dang sure looks older than 2 years based on neck size. But from a management standpoint, we know he is not of an age to have peaked in antler growth.

From the standpoint of self-training for field aging, this one may be one of the rare confounders. Would you have any on the hoof photos or trailcams of quality you could share so we can, kinda, see what you saw?

[Islandrat]

nice deer

[sako]

Teeth do show 2 years old.......and they are wrong! Great mature deer there!!!!