Hey yall,

I am having a hard time judging the age of the buck I shot this year by the tooth wear/eruption method. I studied a booklet I have on how to examine the lower jaw molars and premolars and am really starting to doubt the accuracy of this method. My buck scored over 170" and had a live weight of over 200 pounds, but the molars are still very sharp and the dentin:enamel ratio is not as worn as it should be. I would've called this deer 4.5 to 5.5 years old by looking at him through the binos, but his tooth wear indicates 2.5 years to maybe 3.5. I am going to send the incisors into a lab that counts the annular rings of the cementum. I just can't believe this deer is that young!

Has anyone sent their teeth in to one of these labs and can you recommend a place that you trust? I was surprised by the number of laboratories that offer this service!

Thanks

Never sent teeth off to be aged. But a big factor with tooth wear is the deer's diet. If there is very little hard food in the diet such as corn or acorns tooth wear might not correlate to the age charts. The ages charts are based on average wear of deer on a mixed diet. Is this buck was a plains deer with a diet of mainly soft browse his teeth would not match his age.

It's somewhat related, but when cleaning deer I've noticed some, which must be older, have easy to break, brittle leg bones and others, no doubt young, have bones that seem resilient that don't snap as easy.

I guess you could say the same for certain other creatures too...

I age a lot of deer every season by the wear on their teeth. I have a pretty good idea of how old some of these deer are. On my ranch a deer that ages 5.5 by tooth wear are usually 7.5 years old. It is a general estimation at best in my opinion.

I have real trouble judging the age of a deer by looking at him. Does anyone know of a good article or book that would help one better judge the age of a deer by just looking at him through binoculars? Where we're hunting we're trying to pass on the younger deer and harvest only those that are nearing the peak of their life-cycle so we can improve the quality of deer in our area. It seems to be working. However, the one I shot during primitive season, which was my best primitive buck to date, wasn't as old as I though he would have been just by looking at him. However, I doubt that I would have let him walk even if I had thought he was younger.

Someone has a video out that is very good at showing how to age deer in the field. I have seen it and liked it, but I can't remeber what the title was maybe put out by QDMA but I'm not sure. A google would probably find it. The best tool I have found is to look at the deer's belly near the back legs. If it goes up nice and tight he's usually 2.5 to 3.5, when it starts getting even 4.5 to 5.5; and a sagging belly means an old deer. By studing this and then looking over the deer's overall body and rack I can usually get close on age, at the very least I can define a mature buck which is what I look for.