Please age jawbone

[CopperHead77]

 

[pass-thru]

3.5

 

[Chris Tripp]

3.5

 

[Howa]

2.5, but your best bet is Alan P., shoot him a pm and he'll take a look at it.

 

[8 POINTS OR BETTER]

2.5

 

[CopperHead77]

2.5, but your best bet is Alan P., shoot him a pm and he'll take a look at it.

I'll do that thanks!

 

[AlanP]

2.5

 

[CopperHead77]

2.5

Here is the deer that it came out of,is it possible his teeth just wasn't exposed to alot of hard mast and didn't wear "as usual" This is Rkenney's buck from a couple weeks ago.

 

[pass-thru]

There's no way that's a 2.5 year old buck. The teeth show an irregular (non-textbook) wear pattern, but if you look at all the indicators on the jawbone, it seems pretty clear that it's at least 3.5. The 3rd cusp of m3 is flattened. That doesn't happen until at least 3 years old. Also, although the dentine is not wider than the enamel on m1, it is just as wide on m3, which indicates at least three years old. Finally, look at how the lingual sides of the cusps are much higher, that's an unusual wear pattern, but it shows more wear than what you would see on a 2 year old deer.

Then look at the body...hard to age a dead deer but that ol boy looks like he could go even older than 3.

Great deer BTW!

 

[CopperHead77]

Pass-thru,does it matter which side the jawbone came from? I've heard the right side is best, I think that is from the left side.

 

[pass-thru]

I've not heard that, doesn't seem it would matter unless that individual dear favored one side for chewing over the other, and I've not seen that when looking at both sides of a deer. I shot a buck last year that had an absess on one side, but still had similar wear on both sides.

 

[CopperHead77]

I'm sure that's right,I was prob just given bad info.Thanks!

 

[RKenney]

My taxidermist thought he might be 4.5, but he wasn't sure. At
first he thought he might be even older before he cut the jaw
bone out. He metioned the dark stained color as the reason. I
didn't know color could be a factor.

 

[7mm08]

if that's 2.5, then you guys must be sowing steroids in the fields.

 

[TN24081]

if that's 2.5, then you guys must be sowing steroids in the fields.

Yea I think they missed that one by a couple of years... lol

 

[AlanP]

Okay. I'll go 3 1/2, but not older than that. I was debating whether to go 2 1/2 or 3 1/2, but I tend to be more conservative, and consistently underage them. There is not much dentine showing, and the ridges on the molars are high and sharp, without much wear, so it is certainly not a 4 1/2, 5 1/2, or older buck.

I also took a second look, and the very last cusp (on the far right in the first photo) is sloped like a deer older than 2 1/2, so I will revise my estimate to 3 1/2.

 

[Howa]

I figured it was a pretty big deer for you not to make any mention of size, weight, or your guess of age. I still went 2.5, because the jawbone is all the info I had. Looking at the deer, I go 3.5, but he had some young looking teeth, other than being dirty. Could it be an Alabama deer that likes the Copenhagen? Nice buck regardless, and no he don't look 2.5 to me.

 

[buckhorn40]

If that's a 2.5 then holy cow, what a stud he would have been next year!

 

[jaybird62]

Looked at teeth before reading any responses... I would have said 2 1/2. After seeing the animal it's hard not to say 3 1/2, max. Buck could have been a late fawn, making him just over 3 years at the time he quit growing.

 

[RKenney]

Howa,
No, he was a Maury co. Tennessee buck, that liked Red Man (ha).

 

[4onaside]

Give Alan P an "A" for changing his opinion after seeing the deer. I would have said 2.5 also due to the extreme sharpness of the teeth, and really not a lot of wear to indicate an older deer. Its much easier to determine 3.5 AFTER you have seen the entire deer.lol

 

[CopperHead77]

So if this animal IS 3.5,then he wasn't maxed out on antler potential....that is scary!

 

[JFields101]

Dont matter how old that deer is.. he is a HAWG MOLLEY!

 

[BSK]

Just one more example of how any aging method--toothwear, cementum annuli, body conformation, etc.--isn't perfect.

Those teeth show patterns that match either 2 1/2 or 3 1/2. Take your pick. The pictured buck looks at least 3 1/2.

 

[RKenney]

BSK,
If this deer I killed was, let's say 3.5, what would the rack
haved looked like at 5.5 or 6.5? This is considering good food
and no injures or disease. I know no one could know, but what
would be your educated guess?

He green scored right at 160 (gross). He had two drop tines, but
one was longer than the other. He also had one brow point broken
off and both brow tines were short. The one that wasn't broken
off was only 3 and a half inches long.

The 8 circumferences all averaged over 4 inches.

 

[BSK]

BSK,
If this deer I killed was, let's say 3.5, what would the rack
haved looked like at 5.5 or 6.5?

Individual genetics and good resources (or at least good personal utilization of available resources--some deer can perform exceptionally well on average to below average resources).

In most locations the range of gross scores produced for a single age-class of buck exceeds 100 inches from top-end to bottom-end. On a single property I have seen 3 1/2 year-old bucks produce racks ranging from 60 gross to 160 gross.

Each antler characteristic will also show the same range. Much overlap will exist between individual antler measurements (such as mass) between age-classes, even though the averages show a steady increase with age. But again, a huge difference exists between averages and individual performance.

Or the buck could be older than 3 1/2 and his teeth just didn't wear normally due to his primary food sources.

Anything is possible.

 

[CopperHead77]

Or the buck could be older than 3 1/2 and his teeth just didn't wear normally due to his primary food sources.

Anything is possible.

I hear you can also take a tooth and make a cut across it,put it under a microscope and count the rings kinda like a tree,but also hear it's costly..guess this is the only way to really know?

 

[BSK]

Or the buck could be older than 3 1/2 and his teeth just didn't wear normally due to his primary food sources.

Anything is possible.

I hear you can also take a tooth and make a cut across it,put it under a microscope and count the rings kinda like a tree,but also hear it's costly..guess this is the only way to really know?

That's the "cementum annuli" technique I mentioned previously. But even that has no higher accuracy than the other methods. Most tests of the cementum annuli method of known age deer only get about 75% accuracy from the best lab. Other labs have worse accuracy records.

The only way to know for sure is to put an ear tag on a deer when they are a fawn.

 

[mike243]

Or the buck could be older than 3 1/2 and his teeth just didn't wear normally due to his primary food sources.

Anything is possible.

I hear you can also take a tooth and make a cut across it,put it under a microscope and count the rings kinda like a tree,but also hear it's costly..guess this is the only way to really know?

That's the "cementum annuli" technique I mentioned previously. But even that has no higher accuracy than the other methods. Most tests of the cementum annuli method of known age deer only get about 75% accuracy from the best lab. Other labs have worse accuracy records.

The only way to know for sure is to put an ear tag on a deer when they are a fawn.

great last sentence,deer from other states cannot be judged the same as Tn,due to the body mass growth rate being diffrent,folks look at deer from really good soil area's & think it is 2x as old as it is,this can also be a big diffrence in the same county,look at area's around cumberland county,corn at the foothils & clear cut area's on the platt,a local may get closer to the correct age of a deer IMO,mike243

 

[BSK]

The only way to know for sure is to put an ear tag on a deer when they are a fawn.

great last sentence,deer from other states cannot be judged the same as Tn,due to the body mass growth rate being diffrent,folks look at deer from really good soil area's & think it is 2x as old as it is,this can also be a big diffrence in the same county,look at area's around cumberland county,corn at the foothils & clear cut area's on the platt,a local may get closer to the correct age of a deer IMO,mike243

An experienced field-judger of age knows to compensate for these regional differences and can still get fairly accurate results, but still not better than any other method.

Forensic pathologists and anthropologists still can't tell exactly how old a human is just by examining the body. They can get ranges and averages based on body-part measurements (bone lengths, skull sutures, teeth, etc.), but again, all that is based on averages. There will always be those that fall at the outer edges of the statistical range and will be incorrectly aged.

But then, when looking at biological herd data, it isn't necessary that each deer is aged perfectly. It is only important that each deer is aged consistantly and close to their real age. Differences all disappear in the averages and trends over time.

I realize hunters want to know the EXACT age of the deer they harvest, but given the variations in any biological system, getting that information simply isn't possible without that animal having been "marked" at birth.