Aging deer by jawbone

[Nova]

We harvested an old buck this year. I can age him to 5.5 plus years old, but want a more accurate aging of him. I have pics of him as what I think was a 2.5 or 3.5 year old in 2014. I think he is 6.5, but want to know for sure, he might be older. Anyone know where I can send the jawbone for aging?

 

[bueller]

I had planned on sending an incisor into these guys from my buck last year but the taxidermist forgot to save the jawbone for me
http://www.deerage.com/

 

[Tap]

Deerage.com

 

[Bill]

Yep that's the place. They have pretty good instructions on removing the incisors on their web page.

 

[yoderjac]

We harvested an old buck this year. I can age him to 5.5 plus years old, but want a more accurate aging of him. I have pics of him as what I think was a 2.5 or 3.5 year old in 2014. I think he is 6.5, but want to know for sure, he might be older. Anyone know where I can send the jawbone for aging?

I would talk to your local game department wildlife biologist and see if he will age it for you. The problem is that tooth wear varies with diet, and you need a baseline of local deer for calibration. Keep in mind that once you get beyond 3.5 years, jawbone aging is not that accurate. They did a study once where "expert" jawbone agers were asked to age jawbones independently and they looked at how wide the spread of estimates was. I believe they also recycled jawbones secretly changing the ID tag and had the same "experts" age it a second time unknowingly and looked at that spread as well.

The bottom line is that you won't know for sure with jawbone aging for an older deer. There are other techniques used that are more accurate and I presume those companies mentioned are using them.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Tap]

I would talk to your local game department wildlife biologist and see if he will age it for you. The problem is that tooth wear varies with diet, and you need a baseline of local deer for calibration. Keep in mind that once you get beyond 3.5 years, jawbone aging is not that accurate. They did a study once where "expert" jawbone agers were asked to age jawbones independently and they looked at how wide the spread of estimates was. I believe they also recycled jawbones secretly changing the ID tag and had the same "experts" age it a second time unknowingly and looked at that spread as well.

The bottom line is that you won't know for sure with jawbone aging for an older deer. There are other techniques used that are more accurate and I presume those companies mentioned are using them.

Thanks,

Jack

Are you talking about tooth wear aging or cementum analai aging?
I'm starting to believe that wear aging is a bit of a crap shoot.
Tooth replacement is great out to 18 months, and wear aging out to 2.5 is pretty good because wear on those pre molars will be minimal. After that, wear aging is good for placing deer into age CLASSES and not so much getting an accurate estimate of THE year.
And for the most of us, placing a deer into an age-class is good enough.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[yoderjac]

Are you talking about tooth wear aging or cementum analai aging?
I'm starting to believe that wear aging is a bit of a crap shoot.
Tooth replacement is great out to 18 months, and wear aging out to 2.5 is pretty good because wear on those pre molars will be minimal. After that, wear aging is good for placing deer into age CLASSES and not so much getting an accurate estimate of THE year.
And for the most of us, placing a deer into an age-class is good enough.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

The title of the thread is jawbone aging so I presume that is what the OP was asking about. That is typically wear aging which is what I was describing in my post. At the end, I referred to other techniques. The one I know about is cementum annuli (CA) aging. That only requires a tooth, not a jawbone.

I completely agree with your assessment of jawbone aging. I think a well qualified ager with plenty of local experience can probably get out to 3 1/2 with reasonable accuracy. Beyond that, it is a crapshoot in my opinion.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Tap]

The title of the thread is jawbone aging so I presume that is what the OP was asking about. That is typically wear aging which is what I was describing in my post. At the end, I referred to other techniques. The one I know about is cementum annuli (CA) aging. That only requires a tooth, not a jawbone.

I completely agree with your assessment of jawbone aging. I think a well qualified ager with plenty of local experience can probably get out to 3 1/2 with reasonable accuracy. Beyond that, it is a crapshoot in my opinion.

Thanks,

Jack

But he also asked about labs. That where I got a little confused...not with your post, exactly, I was confused a little with what the OP wanted.
OP, do you want WEAR estimates or LAB estimates? (2 different things)

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[yoderjac]

But he also asked about labs. That where I got a little confused...not with your post, exactly, I was confused a little with what the OP wanted.
OP, do you want WEAR estimates or LAB estimates? (2 different things)

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Yep. That is why I formulated my post the way I did. With all that is going on in the industry, I can certainly see company trying to get folks to send in jawbones in to them for wear aging. The CA aging is not location dependent like wear aging and that does make sense. Last I checked, it was pretty expensive.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Tap]

Yep. That is why I formulated my post the way I did. With all that is going on in the industry, I can certainly see company trying to get folks to send in jawbones in to them for wear aging. The CA aging is not location dependent like wear aging and that does make sense. Last I checked, it was pretty expensive.

Thanks,

Jack

$25 bucks for incisor analysis.
I guess that price is relative.
And btw, just to be clear, deer age analyzes either incisors or molars...you don't send the jaw.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[yoderjac]

$25 bucks for incisor analysis.
I guess that price is relative.
And btw, just to be clear, deer age analyzes either incisors or molars...you don't send the jaw.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

When I said expensive, here is what I meant. We have every deer we harvest on our farm aged for free and all of the measurements tabulated for free by our game department biologist. We typically harvest between 10 and 30 deer per year. The value added to have every deer CAed would be small and the cost high. If you are only doing it for the small fraction of deer that mature bucks it makes much more sense.

Your are spot on with regard to what you send in. That is why I presumed the "jaw bone" aging in the OP was referring to tooth development/wear estimation aging. As you say, placing a deer into an age-class by wear aging is sufficient for most deer management decisions. Satisfying curiosity about an individual buck age may make the $25 price tag well worth it for the OP.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[j-bird]

my opinion is that aging deer by tooth wear requires a large sampling. By this I mean the wear the teeth see can be influenced by regional differences based on what they eat and how much of it they eat. the wear seen on a 4 year old deer in a heavy conifer forest area I would suspect would be very different than one of the same age living in heavy row crop country. You also would then need samples on known aged deer to really have an idea. Once a deer reaches 3+ years old it's as much guess work after that as anything else is without "control samples".

The deerage thing is fine, but again from what I have seen they will give you a range.....so is that accuracy enough to warrant the effort and cost? If they tell you the deer is 4 to 6 years old....you may know that already.

I personally have given up on age. I figure if the deer is 4 or older that is all that matters. I see little difference in knowing if he is 6 or 7. I don't manage anywhere near to a level of intensity where that would make a difference to my activities.

 

[Mista Paacha]

Several years ago during an Iowa shotgun season I was sitting in my hut and a buck limped by in the fence. Clearly wounded and totally ran out of gas I gave up my tag to put him out of misery. He had been shot just above the back right knee and sweat had frozen to him. Very sad sight.
He wasn’t anything special. His rack was supposed to be typical 10 but several tines had been broken. He looked old. I butchered him and ground him all into sausage. His jaw bone worn almost completely flat. I’m guessing 6+. When I took the deboned meat to the locker they weighed the boxes. 90lbs of deboned meat. Turns out he was the largest buck I’ve harvested.

 

[Nova]

But he also asked about labs. That where I got a little confused...not with your post, exactly, I was confused a little with what the OP wanted.
OP, do you want WEAR estimates or LAB estimates? (2 different things)

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Sorry for the confusion. I have the entire jaw bone with incisors and want the lab testing.

 

[Nova]

The deerage thing is fine, but again from what I have seen they will give you a range.....so is that accuracy enough to warrant the effort and cost? If they tell you the deer is 4 to 6 years old....you may know that already.
.

Is this true, they give you a range and not a exact year? If that is the case, I am out. I can guess a year from the tooth wear and trail cam history.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

www.deerage.com gives you the exact age, not a range.

No test is 100% accurate though, but from what I've read cementum annuli testing is the most accurate way to predict the age of older deer. I can say I've been happy with the results I've received for the $25 charge.

 

[Tap]

Is this true, they give you a range and not a exact year? If that is the case, I am out. I can guess a year from the tooth wear and trail cam history.

No, they don't give you a range, they give you their estimate.
But that has been debate on what the percentage of accuracy CA aging provides.
Certain age classes (middle age, if I recall correctly??) have a higher rate of accuracy than other age classes.
CA aging is not 100% accurate, but it's the best we have right now...certainly better than tooth wear.
Tooth replacement is 100% but only out to 18 months old.
Seems to me that I remember reading (in Leonard Lee Rue's book) that the most accurate method is weighing the cornea, but that was written a long time ago. I don't think weighing is commercially available...that is if it's even considered to be a technique any more.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Tap]

Here's how the determination is written...

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Nova]

Thanks guys. I am getting the forms ready now and will remove the incisors tonight...then I get to wait 120 days....

I just got an email from them and they say they are accurate to the year 85% of the time and 14% +/- one year.

 

[j-bird]

http://www.deerage.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIo961jJrE1wIV1jqBCh2OZwzLEAAYASAAEgK21PD_BwE

Just read for yourself and decide. Last time I looked into it myself I recall there was somewhere that they stated that the accuracy of the age was within 1 year...one way or the other. The way I read that was a 5 year old could be reported as 4 or 6 and that a study showed they where accurate on known animals 85% of the time. I'm not saying that is terrible.....I'm just saying, make sure you know the accuracy behind what you are paying for.