Leaving aside tooth eruption and wear rates, I am looking for ways to improve my ability to age roe deer once they are in the larder.

I believe the most accurate method is sectioning a tooth and counting the layers in the dentine. Has anybody tried this at home? Is it a practical method for the average stalker?

What about the diameter of the pedicles and the shape of the coronets in the bucks? I am sure I have seen a formula which estimates the age by comparing the height of the pedicles with their diameter...anybody know this or use it?

Regards,

Pete

Pete,

The most accurate method is probably counting the cement rings in a tooth, but as I understand it, this method is far beyond my capabilities.

There is no measurement (diameter of pedicles, shape or size of antlers, etc) with the required correlation with age to be able to more or less predict it.

Recently ACE (Asociaci�n del Corzo Espa�ol or Spanish Roe Association) in its bulletin nr. 5 has published a study done in cooperation with a Spanish University and their research team, which explains a scientific method to age a roe using lower jawmolar and premolar erosion patterns.

We have aged 15 different roe using this method (from 2 to 9 years old) and have sent tooth samples to a laboratory to verufy the accuracy of the method.

Unfortunately, it is all in Spanish, but if you have an interest I can mail you a copy of it and maybe help you out a lttle bit with the translation.

regards,

montero

Montero,

Thank you, I would be very interested in reading that bulletin...

I have never heard of being able to estimate the age of older Roe in this way as I thought eruption wasusually complete by 13 months and after that you had to rely on wear as a rough indicator or get the tooth sectioned for an accurate figure.

Since my last post I have spoken to a collegue who seems to recall the pedicle formula as well. If we track it down, I will post it here and maybe we can verify it using some of your results..

Regards,

Pete

PS I would also be interested in hearing more about ACE...Is it soley a conservation body or is it favourable towards stalkers as well?

While dentine layers counting is the approved method when applied to red deer, it's not reliable with roe where the layers are too small and intricated. In his writings, the Duke of Bavaria (probably the greatest roeder-expert of all times) reports that after his lifelong study of these animals, all methods tried (dentine layers, crown width, appearance, etc.)turned out unreliable in time as all depend on living conditions of the subject. The only sure way he found to age a particular animal was to monitor him day after day, watching him growing from being a fawn to his death. During this intimate contact with known deer, it became obvious that their evolution was far from being linear, more like ups and downs, depending on individual life experiences. Going back and forth between being a 6- or a 4-pointer is not unusual and even the crown width may vary accordingly. Although widely accepted, tooth wear is probably one of the most unreliable factors as flat molars have been reported on young bucks depending on ligneous food. Doesn't make it simple, isn't it ?

Andre,

I guess what I am looking for is one or more methods that can be used together to give a "best guess" with in a couple of years. You must have been in the situation where a beast has been shot and perhaps because of its poor condition there is a debate from the stalkers present as to what age it is.. I suspect most guesses are nothing more than sheer speculation...

What about the "seam" that travels down the top of the skull? I notice that as it goes between the pedicles that on some beasts this "seam" takes the form of quite a pronounced ridge and the profile as you view the predicles from the front is that of a "W"....I assume this a young beast and that ridge become less pronounced as the deer gets older untill that front profile of the pedicles becomes more of a "U" shape....finally as the beast gets older the pedicles thicken out/increase in diamtere giving the profile the appearence of a "V"...This would also tie in with the theory that where the pedicles are wider than the bottom of the antler (just above the coronet)this is a buck that is "going back" ie getting old and past its prime...

Any thoughts gents?

Pete

Hey PETE,
i thing the only method to get knowledge about how old the roe was, is to send the teeth away to a laboratory. They cut a small slice out of the tooth and then will tell you excaxtly how olod it was.
But this won�t help you to judge the age of a roe that�s standing in thefield.
In Germany we do have some wild life institues that will do this "tooth method" for free.
Anyhow....
for a private person or average hunter the best thing is that u try to put as much single things together and assume them .
But i think especialy roes are hard to judge if it�s come to the age question
By only looking on the teeth you have to see what kind of colour the dentin has and how much sand the deers will take "as polisher, which do have a big influence on the teeth and abbrehesive of the teeth" when feeding out in the field.

cheers
Konstantin

Andre,

Dentine layers counting, as described by Aitken, is a reliable method, if followed correctly. A very precise description of Aitken's method may be found in a small booklet edited by the Forestry Commission. It is called Roe Deer Management and was written by Chapman and Mayle.

It is, however, not perfect. Norma Mayle, for example, while applying Aitken's technique on samples of known age has sometimes found errors as high as 15%.

A. Von Bayern is unquestionably a great expert, but, unfortunately, he has not used a scientific method to structure all his observations in a systematic manner. This means that his opinions are just that, opinions, and cannot qualify as scientific doctrine.

Regarding tooth wear I had always consider it unreliable but lets see what turns out from the new investigation I mentioned above.

You know, Andr�, the only constant in science, is change.

Montero

Pete, the frontal seam becomes a solid ridge when the animal gets older. What it proves is that you are looking at an adult subject but it won't tell you more...

Konstantin, tooth wear is heavily dependent on the deer's habitat. Whether his daily fare is grassy or ligneous makes the difference.

Montero, the dentine layers method is just that : not reliable. OTOH, it's accurate when applied to red deer whose layers are bigger and more distinct. True, the "good Duke" was no scientist by trade (in fact, I doubt he ever worked at all ) but he possessed a scientific mind which allowed him to put his observations to good use. Considering he spent a lifetime spying on roe, nobody has probably seen as many deer as he did. Therefore and like many, I tend to take his advice seriously.

It propably won't be as accurate as clinical testing on of the dentine layers but I use a combination of factors to guess a roe bucks' age.

As they get older the pediclues tend to get shorter, thicker and come closer together.(propbably due to the welding of the seam in the skull)

The facial coloration can also become darker where dark, conversly whiter where light.

The dental wear and distribution of the wear and the overall appearance of the antlers are another good general clue.

With these factors you will get an; old, mature, young distinction, possibly accurate to within a year.

It might not be of much help but that's how I go about it.

Guys,

I have done a little research in my "library" and come up with a few interesting observations. Slightly off topic but in one book Richard Prior, *the* British authority on roe, says that in the field even an expirienced deer manager can't be expected to differentiate between mature roe bucks and old roe bucks with more than 50% accuracy!

In his book "The Roe Deer - Conservation of a Species" mentions a number of indicators that will help determine the approximate age. One particular one which sounds quite interesting is to do with the ossification of the nasal bones.
It seems that central division between these bones is mostly cartilage on a young animal but slowly becomes ossified (fused/) as the animal ages. He quotes a gentleman called Rajnik who believes a that ameasurement of the progress of
this ossification gives a good indicator of the animals age. This varies from 2/10 = 2 years old, through 5/10= 5 years old to 9.5/10 =10 years plus. Prior does say that he is not sure if this system has actually been varified independently on animals of a known age.

Prior also cautions relying on tooth wear alone for the reasons Andre mentions above, but notes that on the angle of the lower jaw the ridges where the jaw muscles attach become much more prnounced as the animal ages and that surface of the bone over the eye sockets is smooth on a young beast becoming thickened and roughened as it ages...

AJ De Nahlik in his book "Management of Deer and their Habitat- Principle and Methods" gives a general formula worked out by Bubenik:

Age= (Average Diameter of the Pedicle x10) divided by the average length of the pedicles.

He then says the results need adusting as follows:

In roe deer results showing 2.5 to 7.5 years deduct 1 year...results over 7.5 years no adjustment needed.
In other deer results 3 years to 8.5 years deduct 1 year, in results 9 to 16 years no adjustment needed, while results for 16 years plus deduct 2 years...

I know the FC in the UK collects the lower jaw bones forom all roe shot on its land for research purposes; it would be interesting to see if they could bring all this research together and produce
something a bit more conclusive.

Regards,

Pete

Andr�,

It is no surprise that you and I do not agree on the reliability on cementum annuli for ageing roe deer.

After all, I have hunted them extensively with a 5,6x50R, and you seem to need a 7x64

Anyway, there is still no consensus among the scientific community as the two mails I reproduce underneath show:

----- Original Message -----
From: Mayle, Brenda
To:
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 10:31 AM
Subject: RE: Teeth & Ungulate ageing

Aitken,(1975) used cementum annuli in the 1st molar to age 9 known-age
roe deer. He found that the number of white bands in the cementum gave an
accurate indication of an animals age, and used the technique to age a
further 110 unknown age roe deer. We investigated the technique at the
Forest Research Agency of the Forestry Commission and found the layers
to be more distinct in the second molar for the few known age roe deer
samples we have had.( unpublished). We have recommend the technique
(Ratcliffe and Mayle, 1992) as the most accurate option for age
determination where cohort analysis or population modelling are to be
applied.

Brenda

Brenda Mayle MSc
Head of Section
Project Leader Deer Population Ecology
and Squirrel Management
Woodland Ecology Branch
Forest Research
Alice Holt Lodge
Wrecclesham
Farnham
Surrey
GU10 4LH

Tel 01420 526236
Fax 01420 520180

Nicholas Tyler wrote:

> Counting annulations in cemetum of incisor teeth is widely used to
> determine the age at death of ungulates and other mammals. One sees all
> kinds of published data, based on this techinique, in which ages are given
> to the nearest year, e.g. '3 yr.', '7 yr.', etc. There have been few
> attempts to valid the technique by comparing counts of annulations with
the
> known age of specimens. Nigel Leader-Williams made an attempt at
> validation by comparing counts of annulations with age determined from the
> pattern of eruption in reindeer. His results suggest that the technique
is
> far less accurate than many people suppose at least for
> reindeer. See: Leader-Williams, N. (1979) Age determination of
> Reindeer introduced into South Georgia. Journal of Zoology, London 188:
> 501-515.
>
> Nicholas Tyler
>
> Dr. Nicholas Tyler
> c/o Department of Biology, University of Tromso,
> N-9037 Tromso, Norway
>
> tel.(direct): +47 77 64 47 88
> fax.: +47 77 64 63 33
> mobile phone: +47 90 57 72 98
>
> web: http://www.ib.uit.no/~nicholas/
>
> Abstracts from the 10th Arctic Ungulate Conference:
> http://www.fm.uit.no/info/imb/arktisk/ungulate/ungulate.html

://www.unizh.ch/zool/
http://www.unizh.ch/zool/anim_behaviour/mcelligott

regards,

montero

Ah, if they only could talk, it would be so much simpler to ask for their age... In the meantime, let's rejoice for all those (in)accurate methods make for hours of pleasant arguing among hunting pals...

[ 10-10-2003, 13:20: Message edited by: Andr� Mertens ]

Andre, Mike,

I seem to recall a revised somewhat simplier method of sectioning teeth being detailed in a recent back issue of either "Stalking Magazine" or the BDS Journal, "Deer". I have building work going on in the house at present and can't find anything (worse than normal!) When some sort of normality returns, but I will see if I can find the article concerned....

Regards,

Pete

I allways feel guilty when such learned discussion occurs as I only form a general opinion of age from tooth wear, coronets, antler angle and fur on forehead.

Ithink that within a distinct geographical area it is possible to generalise into young, middle aged and old by a combination of these factors.

That is enough for me as I merely want to check that the poor 6 point I've just shot wasn't young as opposed to old.

Hola, 1894

The "experiment" to which Pete refers in one of his previous posts is a perfectly recorded and documented experience done with a number of professional Stalkers working for the Forestry Commission.

I can't remember the number of Stalkers, neither the number of roe taken, but the sample was quite large.

Roe were classified in young, mature, and old, and the Stalker was allowed to examine the animal thoroughly before guesstimating its age.

The Stalker's estimations were wrong more than 50% of the time.

So maybe Von Bayern was not that wrong after all!

Regards,

Montero