Interesting tidbit on aging white tails

[Mescalero]

She doesn’t look a day over 6

Back in August I received a mortality signal from one of our collared deer in the Susquehannock State Forest, Doe 20063. There wasn’t much left of the carcass by the time I got there, unfortunately, but I did find her lower jawbone and take it home with me. I was hoping that while there was...

www.deer.psu.edu

 

[catman529]

Sounds about right. Tooth wear aging is a good guess but it's just a guess at the end of the day.

Some of y'all have seen this before, but I killed a doe in 2018 that I figured at least 6.5 or older, I was thinking more likely 8 or 9. I sent the incisors to a lab where they did cementum annuli aging (80% accurate on whitetails according to their website) and she came back as 14.5 years old.

 

[Shed Hunter]

I think as a whole we age deer incorrectly and often-as well as score them

 

[Tnshooter15]

Yes it is really just a guess when we age deer especially on the hoof. I have a doe on my place that is at least 12 and by looking at her she looks 3. I know it's her by a scare on her side.

 

[BSK]

The Severinghaus errors are known to accumulate with age. In essence, toothwear aging almost never over-estimates age, but does under-estimate age, and the error increases with age. A great study done by Mick Hellickson at the King Ranch, with known age deer (ear-tagged as fawns) found that toothwear aging of yearlings was accurate, about 25% of 2 1/2 year-old wear-aging was a year too young, 50% of 3 1/2 aging was a year too young, 75% of 4 1/2 aging was too young (with about 25% of the incorrect ages being 2 years too young) and 100% of 5 1/2 aging was too young (with about 50% of those being two years older than toothwear indicated).

Personally, I use a combination of toothwear and body conformation to produce an age (for bucks). Does, I stick with toothwear, knowing the older does are being under-aged.

 

[Dumbluck]

This is what I've seen in my experience as well. Thanks for posting the study data BSK. I've given and sent out jawbones to experts to have them age them with this method and everytime they have come back atleast 2 years younger than the deer was. I had kept up with all those bucks for years before I was able to harvest them and in some instances they aged them younger than was even possible (younger than the amount of time we had actually kept up with them).

From what I know about cementum annuli it is less accurate in the South than it is in the North.

I honestly don't go by any of the teeth aging methods anymore, simply because I believe it's too inaccurate. The best way to know an age is to keep up with them over the years, imo.

 

[redblood]

Probably with aging whitetails is that you can never check your answers!

 

[Headhunter]

I have said that ever since I first heard of aging. Deer that live on grasses compared to deer that are what we call "stick eaters" the exact same age deer can for sure have different wear patterns on teeth. I have for sure seen mistakes going both ways on deer, guessing older and younger, by supposed qualified biologist.