Aging deer by tooth wear???

[A.S.]

Any of you know how accurate this is?? I have a friend who swears by it, but I just have to wonder how accurate it actually is. Seems to me like deer with different food/geological areas would have different wear on their teeth.

Any experts out there?

[Gene Roberts]

Not really,but I know that the more worn they are the older.

[pintail_drake2004]

Im a forester here in So. IL and for us its pretty darn close. for instance my bro shot a doe w/ his bow in early november and it was one we have been watching for 5+ years(FYI she has had 10 fawns in the last 4 years). when we aged her, we concluded she was 7.5yr old. The diet here is mainly corn, beans, wheat, and some soft mast. with the occasional acorn when we get a decent year. I not only look at teeth though, we also look at ears and eye, and overall body structure. put them all together and you can get very accurate.

[Pat B]

It can be very accurate but it does depend on the area you are in. On coastal GA and SC and probably FLA there is so much silica in the soil and in plant material that tooth wear is more pronounced. Someone that is familiar with a particular area can be pretty accurate with the tooth wear method...but like pintail said, body shape, ears, eyes, etc will help with the ageing.
  Check out QDMA for more info about tooth wear aging of deer.    Pat

[wapiti]

Shot an elk this year. Took the lil' ivories into the check station along with the boned out meat and showed them to the biologist. He said she was 10-13yo but he would put her at 13. He was very sure of himself so it there must be something to it.

[A.S.]

Thanks guys. Guess it is pretty reliable. I just see a lot of really nice bucks that are taken around here (my mentioned friend is a taxidermist). Seems like most of them are 2 1/2 years old (according to tooth wear). Some of them have such big bodies and huge mass on their antlers that it makes me wonder.

Guess I sould quit worrying about it and go shoot one of them with my bow!

[Deadsmple]

I don't buy it. Can't see how a deer that feeds on mostly ag crops can have the same tooth wear as a deer that feeds mostly on acorns. Maybe I'm missing something, I just don't see it.

[Labs4me]

Prior to settling into my career, years ago I worked seasonally for a few years for the Michigan DNR. One of my responsibilities was helping to age and maintaining a record of the age/sex of deer that were brought into any check station in our district. Prior to the hunting season each fall, the DNR would hold a clinic to train/re-train us on how to age deer by tooth analysis. In Michigan, it is fairly easy to age a deer- they are ALL 1 1/2 years old or younger (That was a joke; Work with me, I write my own material.)

Aging a deer younger that 19 months is a no brainer. Even deer younger than 3 1/2 years of age are fairly easy to age regardless of where they live. Aging a deer in the 3 1/2 - 6 year range is more difficult, subjective and requires considerably more experience (or guessing). Regarding OLD deer- it is not difficult to determine that a deer is old - say, older than 7 years - but to be able to visually inspect a tooth and announce with confidence that a deer (or elk) is 13 years old- no way!!! Not even Kirby on the Island of Misfit Toys is that good.

[Plug]

My son shot a massive, gnarly, bifurcated, 140" class 8 pt. that f.d.' 185#'s.  Game Warden adamantly toothed it at 1.5 y.o.

I've looked at a lot of dead 1.5 y.o. bucks in Delaware and almost all of them weigh between 105 and 130# f.d. and I've not seen one sporting that kind of head gear.  Either the deer had a pituatary gland problem, the GW didn't know what he was doing or the tooth wear charts aren't across the board accurate.  You can't convince me that buck was 1 year old.

[bunyan]

I have one of those shiny wildlife degrees and up to a year and a half (or is it two and a half?!) you can tell by the tooth replacement.  It's like growing out baby teeth.  It's foolproof.  But yes, after that it's a mix of experience and a SWAG.  That's scientific, wild azz guess!  Different regions of the country do wear different.  A sandy region may wear quicker than one where the soil has more clay.  That's where experience comes into play.  Of course you could always get fancy and look at the annual rings (centum annuli?) of a tooth.  Its like counting rings on a tree but it requires a microscope and some dyes and stuff.  There's always ongoing studies to verify how precise this stuff is.

[A.S.]

I always had the same thoughts as Deadsmple. I still have seen a few like Plug said that really makes you wonder.

Someone brought my taxidermist friend a spike once just to give him the cape. The deer field dressed at 177#---it was one 1/2 years old! Like he always says, they are just like people----some are big and some are small. Guess he's right. He probably looks at more bucks up close in a year than most guys do in a lifetime.

[wapiti]

I suspect this biologist was so confident because he has been doing it for 15 years. I am sure he gets to compare tooth wear to actual aging of the animals using the teeth extracted at the check station. I'd bet he is pretty darn close.