Teeth Aging Texas Hill Country Deer

[Top Of Texas]

I have read through this whole discussion and kept up with it over the last couple of weeks. I have no first hand knowledge of watching the same deer for years. My pattern of leasing for the last decade has been: find an awesome place, hunt for a year and pass some quality deer while I learn the place, hunt the next year, and then the place gets sold. Rinse and repeat. I’m super envious of y’all that have the ability to watch deer and learn your herd extensively over a decade +. That’s truly a fortunate position to be in and one I hope to be in myself when I stop leasing and buy my own acreage to hunt.

My observations from this discussion are that for a hunter making a decision on to release an arrow or a fire a bullet is most commonly made from antler size and/or body conformation. It has been noted that really old deer can sometimes look like grandpa or a spring chicken. Intense monitoring by in person sightings, trail cams, heli-surveys, etc can give you history with a deer to have a reasonable idea of the age. If you are trying to only harvest mature 7-8+ year old deer, this is the only way, without ear-tagging, to follow and manage your herd before the shot.

What I think the teeth aging point that is attempting to be made is that it can still be an after the fact management tool. I believe that teeth on a deer wear differently in different areas and with different feed programs, but the research presented shows that deer are at or nearing their peak antler potential when certain tooth characteristics are seen. Now are those characteristics shown in a 6 year old deer on your place, but in a 9 year old deer on mine? I don’t know, but what I think you could do is still use it as a tool.

If we say, alright, we are only going to kill 8+ year old deer and after the last 7 years of watching our herd, these are the 8+ year old deer on our hit list. Season goes along and you harvest 5 bucks from the list. You remove their jaws and upon inspecting them, you find that their teeth show the characteristics that they were at the top of their antler potential based on wear from the teeth. Great! It’s just another confirmation that we are doing the right thing. On the other hand, if the teeth were nubs and those deer were on the decline (in antler size for this season) then maybe we need to move down our harvest year minimum by one year to 7+. Or if they show that there was still a lot of potential in those deer, then maybe we move our minimum up a year to 9+. Not using it as an absolute to make a hard decision off of, but as a tool to confirm or question your management program along with all the other tools you are already utilizing.

Again, I could be completely wrong, and I’m fine with that. I don’t have near the experience that many of y’all that have chimed in do. This is just my observation from the discussions that have commenced thus far.


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Spot on!

[Top Of Texas]

How tooth wear impacts management.

Bucks: A data set will reveal if a property is allowing bucks to reach, or be near, peak antler growth. I again point to the attached chart from the well managed properties with the "116 Harvested Bucks". Note where these guys do a good job of focusing on older bucks (regardless of the actual years). Compare that to the chart titled, "Buck Age Distribution at Meat Processors". This is a cross section of the average deer hunter.

So, yes, in this situation, tooth wear is a means of assessment. It can reveal what's been going on and identify areas where education and training are needed. Depending on goals of course.

[Top Of Texas]

Here's those charts I just mentioned.

[GarGuy]

How tooth wear impacts management.

Bucks: A data set will reveal if a property is allowing bucks to reach, or be near, peak antler growth. I again point to the attached chart from the well managed properties with the "116 Harvested Bucks". Note where these guys do a good job of focusing on older bucks (regardless of the actual years). Compare that to the chart titled, "Buck Age Distribution at Meat Processors". This is a cross section of the average deer hunter.

So, yes, in this situation, tooth wear is a means of assessment. It can reveal what's been going on and identify areas where education and training are needed. Depending on goals of course.

I finally get it. So we can definatively determine that Chance Love needs more education and training.

[TexasTK]

Ahh peak antler growth. When is that ?
Since we are on subject of teeth how much does wear of teeth lead to the decline in bucks overall health & antler quality. IMO I believe that you see bucks still producing quality antlers well into 10 yrs plus because they can still process there food & get quality nutrition from being able to digest it properly because there teeth are still in good condition.
Of course feeding protein contributes towards this.

[GarGuy]

Look, I owned a processing plant. Are most deer that come in younger than peak antler development? Absolutely. I can tell you that a cross section of hunters bring me deer could care less about age. Most came from the DCNF. No need to look at the teeth on those yearlings before AR. Kids killing first deer, hunters with nothing vested shooting the first legal deer they see. Then there are many small property owner with no history just thrilled to kill a 14 inch 8pt. Never gave a thought to age.

I see a very positive improvement in this mentality with the increased use of trail cameras. While improvement in perception of the general hunting public is good, you can not compare a cross section of what comes to a locker plant to what is shot on a managed property and gain any useful info because the goal of the hunter is drastically different.I can tell you what you will see without even looking at the deer or jaw.

Because the state decided larger antlers were the goal, age structure of killed deer had to improve. Thus there became a built in need to age shame hunters that killed deer before their prime. This is incredibly prevalent in state biologist. I have seen it first hand. Just a built in tendency to under age deer and shame a hunter for killing it. Tooth wear is useless for any other purpose as far as i am concerned.

[GarGuy]

At least we finally got an answer to what purpose TOT feels teeth serve. To identify areas where training and education are needed.

Let's say I'm a big land owner that has leased the deer hunting to the same fellow named Chance for ten years. He don't kill many deer and only lets family kill a few along.

I decide to make the place a club and go mld. OL chance has stands and feeders in place and I always liked him so he keeps a couple spots. The great news is I got this highly accredited biologist out of the very top of the state. Best of the best and passionate about deer.

Ol Chance gets 3 trophy tags and at the end of season the jaws are sent to the biologist. Only one of them has a dished molar . Turns out ol Chance had saved the jaw from all his bucks and they are at the camp house so I send them to the biologist. Same pattern.

My biologist calls me and has identified a member that needs to be re educated and retrained. Now I know Ol Chance and he claims he has been watching these deer for 7 or 8 years. I offer to get him some training and education but he thinks he knows this herd better than the biologist. Biologist says that's common but in reality a hunter just gets his deer mixed up.

Now I'm really disappointed in Chance. I thought he was a good guy but now I see he is the problem. His azz gotta go.


That's exactly how this garbage works.

[Top Of Texas]

I finally get it. So we can definatively determine that Chance Love needs more education and training.

Bahahahahaha! No sir. That last jaw he shared is evidence of that. Now if all his jaws consistently showed 3-4 years in tooth wear, then yes.

Also, I been meaning to say that the electrician buddy is a great analogy. I intend to use that in the future, but I'll be sure to give you credit.

[Top Of Texas]

Ahh peak antler growth. When is that ?
Since we are on subject of teeth how much does wear of teeth lead to the decline in bucks overall health & antler quality. IMO I believe that you see bucks still producing quality antlers well into 10 yrs plus because they can still process there food & get quality nutrition from being able to digest it properly because there teeth are still in good condition.
Of course feeding protein contributes towards this.

Mountains of data reveal that whitetail bucks peak in antler growth when they have 1-2 dished out molars. That's an average of course. Since they're so uncooperative and won't let us look in their mouths, then field aging ability is a must. And we know from evidence that hunters can get pretty good at estimating body conformation and/or growing history in a manner that pretty consistently kills those older aged deer that have 1-2 dished out molars.

Now a big question is - Since a buck can peak in antler size during any time during about 4 different years of his life, then how do we know what year that might be when he peaks? I always recommend to target the best bucks only in years when we have average and preferably above average rainfall. So if there's a really big one that should be "coming of age" and we have a drought, then it's a good idea to let him go another year.

[Mexico]

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[Top Of Texas]

Look, I owned a processing plant. Are most deer that come in younger than peak antler development? Absolutely. I can tell you that a cross section of hunters bring me deer could care less about age. Most came from the DCNF. No need to look at the teeth on those yearlings before AR. Kids killing first deer, hunters with nothing vested shooting the first legal deer they see. Then there are many small property owner with no history just thrilled to kill a 14 inch 8pt. Never gave a thought to age.

I see a very positive improvement in this mentality with the increased use of trail cameras. While improvement in perception of the general hunting public is good, you can not compare a cross section of what comes to a locker plant to what is shot on a managed property and gain any useful info because the goal of the hunter is drastically different.I can tell you what you will see without even looking at the deer or jaw.

Because the state decided larger antlers were the goal, age structure of killed deer had to improve. Thus there became a built in need to age shame hunters that killed deer before their prime. This is incredibly prevalent in state biologist. I have seen it first hand. Just a built in tendency to under age deer and shame a hunter for killing it. Tooth wear is useless for any other purpose as far as i am concerned.

That's why I said, "Depending on goals." The public hunting threads here and on other platforms are some of my favorites because you don't hear crap about age, nutrition, genetics, or any other trophy driven language. Just some folks that went hunting, killed something, and had a blast doing it.

And your just flat out wrong about the shaming. Especially if your attempting to casually point a finger at me. I have stated repeatedly in this thread, and in many others regarding tooth wear, that the technique should never be used as a weapon. It should never be used to kick people off leases or even create the tiniest amount of stress while hunting. I have seen that happen myself, but the judgmental portion and stress came from other hunters. Most of our state biologists are forced to work with the trophy gang because that's who goes knocking on their doors. They also know that the vast majority of hunters, regardless of what they kill, sit in their blind in the pre-dawn darkness dreaming of a monster walking out. Telling a hunter that they killed a 2 year old deer, because the hunter asked, isn't shaming. That's educating. They do that one at at time, to those who want to know, and the line never ends.

[Top Of Texas]

More on bucks and tooth wear in management.

Being able to place bucks into age categories helps analyze data that can be used to monitor and document progress. Now, field dressed weights on bucks can be tricky. So first put them into a basic category of mature (5 years and older based on tooth wear) so that should all have achieved full body development. The biggest hang-up is if the bucks are killed prior to or after the rut because the massive weight loss would destroy any meaningful summary if bucks were killed all through out the season. And that's a big limitation. But sometimes there's places that run hunts during specific time periods each year, so that data would be useful if the sample size is large enough.

I attached a chart from actual data as an example. This gives evidence that the management program the ranch has implemented is having a positive impact because we see an increasing trend in field dressed weights. 13 years of consistent records keeping resulted in a great data set. Now obviously, that's eventually going to flatten out, but it's an encouraging trend and confirmation of positive responses to management actions. Which is really cool, but I'm trying to stay focused on application of teeth.

[kyle1974]

Teeth Aging Texas Hill Country Deer

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There’s not even a horse left


It’s Just puréed horse liquid at this point.

[Top Of Texas]

Teeth wear is useful for analyzing doe harvest data as well.

The weights are pretty simple with doe, and while they peak in body size at around 4 years of age (based on tooth wear) the increments are smaller. However, we have the problem of dealing with the yearlings as they are notably smaller, and the previous year's fawn crop can have a big impact on the current years field dressed weight average. So, all we have to do with the doe is spot the baby teeth and exclude the 1.5 year old weights, then we can look at "adult" doe weights over time.

I attached a chart from actual data as demonstration showing doe weights over 14 years. And like many long term data sets, they should peak because a whitetail doe just isn't going to grow to 300 pounds. But we see from this chart a good trend, and while there's some cool stuff going on with deer density, I'll stay focused on teeth. Note that in 2011, one of the worst droughts in Texas history that resulted in very low fawn crops, that the hunters took advantage of low reproduction and killed 91 doe in an attempt to catch up to, and reduce, the population (free range). There was concern that it was too many. So in the following year, 2012, they looked at the age distribution of 38 harvested doe (second chart) and were relieved to see a distribution of ages that demonstrates over harvest did not occur. If it had, they would've seen a shift to younger ages. Also interesting, note the lack of 1.5 year old doe in the sample as a result of the previous year's drought.

[Mexico]

There’s not even a horse left


It’s Just puréed horse liquid at this point.

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