I have an odd buck i have been watching for a few years now, and i'd like to know the approximate age. problem is, i have no idea how to post pics on here... please help!

It would really just be a guessing game just looking at one on the hoof. You really need him on the ground to do a check of his lower rear teeth to come close to aging one.

new info says the "jaw bone/teeth method" is not exactly as accurate as once thought. You can look at many things to age a deer on the hoof. I do it every year, but I'm no 'expert', just a student in WT hunting.

The instructions are here. http://forums.accuratereloadin...22101325/m/951100671

https://www.facebook.com/photo...44725&type=1&theater

We'll see if this works!

It tells me "Content unavailable."
If you PM me I can give you my email. Then you can email them to me I will put them up.

To the best of my knowledge there is only one accurate method of aging a deer. It requires pulling one of the front incisor teeth and sending it to a lab to be cross sectioned.

From what I understand teeth put on growth rings much the same way a tree does.

Most or all of the "experts" give themselves a good margin of error when aging deer on the hoof.

The usual comment goes something like, "Well it is at least 2.5 years old, but could be 3.5 years old, but no more than 4.5 years old".

You're full of sh*t CHC!



Just kidding Randall, thought I'd beat someone to the punch.

quote:

You're full of sh*t CHC!

Your not the first to mention that. Good One Norton.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
To the best of my knowledge there is only one accurate method of aging a deer. It requires pulling one of the front incisor teeth and sending it to a lab to be cross sectioned.

From what I understand teeth put on growth rings much the same way a tree does.

Most or all of the "experts" give themselves a good margin of error when aging deer on the hoof.

The usual comment goes something like, "Well it is at least 2.5 years old, but could be 3.5 years old, but no more than 4.5 years old".

Part of my job was checking deer and taking tissue samples for CWD testing at deer check stations. I aged perhaps several thousand deer in my career and CHC is correct when he says the only 100% sure way to age a deer is to have an incisor sectioned by a lab. Failing that, the most sure field method is the tooth presence/wear method.

You can be 100% sure with this method to determine a fawn or a 1.5 year old deer, since these are determined by which teeth are present. You can be pretty sure about a 2.5 and a 3.5 year old deer from the tooth wear method. After that there is a lot of variability that is caused by different diets. For example, there will be more tooth wear in deer who eat grass and woody vegetation in sandy soil than deer who eat clover, alfalfa, beans, and corn in the black soil farming areas or people's landscaping and garden plants in town.

We used to challenge each other to guess the age of the deer as they came in before we looked at the teeth. Does are very deceptive. Sometimes a large bodied doe looks like an old one, but when we would look at her teeth she would be young. There were many small bodied old does as well. Generally, the oldest deer we saw were does. I've seen some doe teeth that were worn down to the level of the gums or even a little below. It would amaze me that they could chew anything. They had to be 10 years old or more. One of the biggest bodied deer I've seen was a doe I shot while sharpshooting. I thought she was a buck who had shed his antlers. She was a monster and turned out to be 4.5 years old. Her body was larger then most bucks. It took 2 of us to drag her out to the road, which was only about 40 yards away.

Bucks were a little easier, but would still often fool us. My general impression was that most bucks are a lot younger than you would think. We saw very few bucks older than 5.5 years old, and most of the really BIG antlered bucks were 2.5 - 4.5 years old. Some of the big 2.5 year old bucks were big as far as spread and tine length, but they generally didn't get the mass until they were 3.5.

Anyway, those are my observations. Take them for what they're worth.