I shot a buck yesterday morning and I've never aged a deer using their teeth. I'd like to give it a shot. Based on the dentine I've estimated him to be 4.5. Am I right or wrong? I might be looking at the wrong thing. Below is the left side of his jaw.
Going by the videos in the links below your deer is/was 3.5 y/o. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2QXoPemYSE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Xc9hzpaFE
That jaw is either a well worn 5.5 or light 6.5. Look at the 4th tooth back. On a 5.5 yr old there is generally an island of enamel left on both cusps. On 6.5, the enamel is worn completely away on both cusps. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
I don't believe it could go 7.5. There's just not enough tooth wear. I think 6.5 is a really good guess. Do you have the other jaw bone by chance? On a case like this I like to see both jawbones Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
I both agree and disagree with this statement. I do believe that enough research has been done to generalize what a deers jaw should look like. So, 95 deer out of 100 that look like x are y age. But there are those with anomalies/losses that affect wear patterns, and I even believe that the soil type in the area can affect wear( Sandy soil would cause more wear than silty). I end up ageing around 100 a year in my job. Most fit in to the category of "there's no doubt its..." Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
There's a lot of dentine on that 6th tooth and they look like they are starting to go blunt and dish out. In my opinion it's a 5.5 year old deer, 6.5 if you're lucky. By 7.5 years old+ their teeth typically have no ridges and the teeth are much lighter where the dentine areas are more of a yellow color due to extreme wear so that rules out the deer being any older than 6.5.
You can pay to send in a jawbone to have aged, still nothing more than a bunch of guys guessing and taking people's hard earned money. There have been numerous jawbones sent in at 100% known age and it's alway at best a 50/50 chance they're even close to the actual age after 3-1/2. Don't know if it's my older age, but I get irritated more and more when people are tricked out of their hard earned money.
We can argue this back and forth, and are both entitled to our opinions, but I will disagree with you on that. Neither I nor the agency I work for charges to age a deer. In fact, as an agency, we pay people to pull jaws so they can be aged. We use this data to help us manage our area/states deer herd. If it wasn't just a little reliable, I don't think it would be such a widespread management tool. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
I'm fine with the state agencies aging deer, it's gets them an idea of age class being harvested, but don't believe after 3-1/2 it's accurate. I'm against the labs that charge hunters to give there analysis when it's not nearly as accurate as they lead people to believe. Sorry to get this thread off topic, good luck this fall!
Post a picture of the deer, trail cam pics too if possible. Jaw aging is not an exact science. Diet plays a lot into the wear of teeth
Cementum aging on the other hand is accurate, so not discounting all tooth aging. Only costs about $20 and 3 or 4 months for an exact age.
I don't have any pictures of him on the hoof. I don't run trail cams on that property. The property is strictly forest. There's no agriculture in my area (Southeast CT). There's a really no food other than browse and acorns.
