Best way to age a deer????

[gator-n-buck]

Thickness of skull plate or teeth? Heard it both ways and was just wondering what you thought.

 

[Diehard Hunter]

Teeth.

 

[catman529]

never heard of skull plate.

just been learning how to age the teeth myself this year. Getting the hang of it

 

[Andy S.]

Teeth. Here's some links that will help.

http://www.qdma.com/uploads/pdf/Jawbone-Aging.pdf

www.qdma.com/articles/estimating-deer-a ... tum-annuli

 

[gator-n-buck]

Let me throw this out there just for debate reasons..... Don't make a differents to me because I hunt racks and meat...

Is there a difference in the wear of teeth of a deer that eats acorns vs corn. Deer that live only in rough conditions vs deer that live on farms. I know hard candy will mess up my teeth vs jelly beans.....

Something to chew on....

 

[whistlinwingman]

Comparing the two...teeth. However the best way is to send the a tooth off to a lab. The teeth wear method is only good for a minimum age guess.

I'd like to see some known ages from trail cams in comparison to what the teeth show. Especially on deer 4.5+

 

[catman529]

Let me throw this out there just for debate reasons..... Don't make a differents to me because I hunt racks and meat...

Is there a difference in the wear of teeth of a deer that eats acorns vs corn. Deer that live only in rough conditions vs deer that live on farms. I know hard candy will mess up my teeth vs jelly beans.....

Something to chew on....

yeah I have heard the diet will influence the teeth wear.

 

[Shed Hunter]

Best way to age a deer? I reckon the best way to do that is ask BSK

 

[Football Hunter]

teeth,far as I know

 

[102]

Teeth, but not by looking, cementum anuli (SP?). This is a process where a cross section of the tooth is used to determine age.

Aging by looking can be subjective after a deer reaches a certain age. I have seen three different age guesses on the same deer from three different "experts".

 

[BSK]

I've never heard of measuring the thickness of the skull-plate as an aging technique.

The Severinghaus tooth wear and replacement aging method is the standard aging technique. However, it does only give you a good minimum ages, especially for the oldest deer (Hellickson's study on known-age deer versus the tooth-wear aging process found that most deer aged by toothwear to be 4 1/2+ are actually a year or two older).

I suspect diet probably does affect tooth-wear.

Cemmentum annuli works extremely well outside of the Southeast for aging deer. However, I question it in the Southeast, where severe summer droughts are common (which can produce two growth/dormancy rings per year).

Personally, I stick to toothwear most of the time. It may under-age the oldest deer, but it does so consistantly, hence produces accurate trend data.

 

[Winchester]

Teeth, but not by looking, cementum anuli (SP?). This is a process where a cross section of the tooth is used to determine age.

Aging by looking can be subjective after a deer reaches a certain age. I have seen three different age guesses on the same deer from three different "experts".

On the money, closest way to get an accurate age.