Cementum Annuli aging

[Texastaxi]

I copied this from another forum. It was originally posted by Michael Schlaebach of LaGrange.
This is his first hand account. He didn't mention where the teeth were sent for the testing.

Just had one of my ranches bring in a deer and the ranch manager was talking about 5 teeth he sent off. He had been planning on doing this little experiment and knew which cull deer teeth he would send off.....it was 5 deer that he knew the EXACT age of since they had been born and tagged at the ranch.

They put the deer down, extracted the teeth and sent them off. 4 out of the five deer came back to be aged anywhere from a year to 2 years above their actual age. Only one deer actually matched it's correct age through the tooth ring information sent back.

[Grayson]

Interesting. So basically unless you are in a high fence and have the deer tagged at birth, there's no one on God's green earth who can age a deer to 100% accuracy, either by sight or scientifically. So the best we can hope for is to get close...

[Texastaxi]

Interesting. So basically unless you are in a high fence and have the deer tagged at birth, there's no one on God's green earth who can age a deer to 100% accuracy, either by sight or scientifically. So the best we can hope for is to get close...

That's kinda the way I saw it too.

[mhbaseball]

good point. Its a very tough thing to do it looks like.

[Casey]

Wow. That's interesting.

[aggie04]

Texastaxi

Did it say you they used?

[Texastaxi]

Texastaxi

Did it say you they used?

No, it didn't.

[Stros]

Wow thats a pretty darn big find. What have these people at T A&M been learning all these years?

[Skipshot]

Interesting. So basically unless you are in a high fence and have the deer tagged at birth, there's no one on God's green earth who can age a deer to 100% accuracy, either by sight or scientifically. So the best we can hope for is to get close...

That is kind of the way I have felt about aging all along.

[Johnny Dangerr]

Well dang. We just sent off 4 sets. Will see what they come back with. One we had a 6.5 and he field dressed 165. {San Saba deer} BTW he was a cull.

[Russ]

Ya I read in magazine that there was a convention of sorts that included over 100 of the top wildlife biologist in the state and they were given an exam with deer pics of known aged deer.

The young deer were aged pretty well at around ONLY 60%!!! Then it went down from there. By the time the 6.5 year old deer pics were aged the results were astonishing. Only like 30% were correct on age. Just goes to show ya that game cam pics aren't the best way of aging and from waht it sounds like teeth aren't either. Any one else see this article. I think it was in Texas Trophy hunter. I'll have to find it and give yall a write up on it.

I've always thought that teeth were a pretty good indicator, but then again it seems a deers diet would have alot to do with it as well. If they eat forbes and soft stuff most of the time then it seems they would have better teeth. If they basically live in a corn field and eat hard acorns all the time then it seems the teeth wear would be alot worse.

[Tex_Cattleman]

Russ - they are talking cementum aging, rather than tooth wear which has proven over and over to be wildly inaccurate. From one of labs that does this work...

The basis for cementum aging is the cyclic nature of cementum growth, which results in an annular pattern of "rings" in the tooth like that formed in the wood of trees. A darkly staining ring, or "annulus," is formed during winter. Abundant, lightly staining cementum is formed during the growth seasons of spring and summer. The underlying physiologic/metabolic mechanisms for cyclic cementum growth are not known. Very darkly staining rings are formed in southern regions of North America, but it is generally true that most mammals in these regions have less distinct annuli than their counterparts in more northern regions. Incidentally, human teeth have similar annuli but the deposition pattern is irregular compared to that of most wild mammals. (Matson's has no expertise in the aging of human teeth.)

This lab actually claims 90% will be within a year of correct. That is not near as accurate as some other websites claim. Good Lord, we are wanting to know whether the buck is 5 or 6, not whether he is 3 or 6.

Our plan this year was to send one tooth to one lab and the other to a different lab. If they didn't all come back similar in age, we'd know to call BS on them. I imagine we'll still do so, as it would be more piece of mind than and internet "he said she said".