Aging mule deer bucks!

[Ought Six]

What you guys think on this one?

 

[rogerthat]

What you guys think on this one?View attachment 262566

Old sum bitch. It’s always hard for me without holding the jaw and comparing to known jaws. Whitey or muley? 7.5 to 8.5 would be where I would put that one

 

[Ought Six]

Old sum bitch. It’s always hard for me without holding the jaw and comparing to known jaws. Whitey or muley? 7.5 to 8.5 would be where I would put that one

Muley, I was thinking at least 8.5 just from experience seeing the deer over the years, wasn’t in very good shape at this stage in his life

 

[ImBillT]

What you guys think on this one?View attachment 262566

Ooooooold!

For a mule deer I’d guess 10+. Whitetail I’d guess 7+.

Might be wrong on both counts.

 

[Ought Six]

Ooooooold!

For a mule deer I’d guess 10+. Whitetail I’d guess 7+.

Might be wrong on both counts.

Yeah I thought they looked flatter than a figure skater. Diagram I compared to was for an 8.5-10.5 year old deer and it matched up perfectly, but I know different areas and stuff cause different wear patterns but he was old!

 

[ImBillT]

I took pictures of all my jaw bones. Couldn’t turn a couple up. I think my wife took them to show her class. Either way, every deer I posted was aged by a bio according to its jaw, and I took pictures of seven of their jaws tonight. I knew which deer each jaw belonged to when I took the pictures an hour ago, but looking at the pics I’m like “wait, which jaw bone is that?”. I’ll sort them out and get them posted soon, but not tonight.

 

[sclancy27]

Quite a bit of flattening on the wide one. Not sure what you’re looking at. When I see tooth wear start to have flattening/smoothing that’s dishing, that’s usually around 7.5 years old in both whitetails and mule deer. I’m ready to see the teeth on more of these bucks. The kill photos are anyone’s guess literally

The top buck was aged at 6.5 yr. IMO, the bucks @Greenhorn posted had less wear. The bottom buck was aged at 4.5 yr. The bucks more closely related to that wear pattern, with one buck showing more wear, hence the 4.5 & 5.5 guess. Now, I could be wrong. Waiting for him to post actual ages.

IMO, people are always over-aging deer if not doing cementum (I guess even that can be wrong). Just statistically speaking, getting a buck over 7.5 yrs old is pretty unlikely. From the book "Ecology and Management of Mule Deer and Whitetail Deer in MT", FWP estimates (via several studies) adult male mule deer total annual mortality at 41.4-61.2%. Lets just say that total annual mortality is 40% of any age male (in reality it would be higher for fawns). In R7 in 2015, population estimate was 103,812 mule deer. For arguments sake, lets say that the 50,000 fawns were born at a 50% split in sexes, so 25,000 males. From birth to 7.5 yrs old, you would see these numbers surviving at the start of each year:

2015 (fawn)- 25,000 males
2016 (1.5)- 15,000 males
2017 (2.5)- 9000 males
2018 (3.5)- 5400 males
2019 (4.5)- 3240 males
2020 (5.5)- 1944 males
2021 (6.5)- 1166 males
2022 (7.5)- 700 males

At 7.5 yrs old, ~2.8% of your original males are alive. This is assuming lower fawn mortality rates and taking the lowest annual mortality. If you increase the mortality to 50%, 7,5 yr old deer are 195 males, 0.8% the original fawn #'s. Spread that out over the landscape....

Anyway, I'm curious to know the actual ages of @Greenhorn's deer.

 

[nhenry]

California. Doubt there are any others. My question was really trying to get at whether or not these were Texas mule deer, of if they were from multiple different areas

Kansas has em as well

 

[rogerthat]

The top buck was aged at 6.5 yr. IMO, the bucks @Greenhorn posted had less wear. The bottom buck was aged at 4.5 yr. The bucks more closely related to that wear pattern, with one buck showing more wear, hence the 4.5 & 5.5 guess. Now, I could be wrong. Waiting for him to post actual ages.

IMO, people are always over-aging deer if not doing cementum (I guess even that can be wrong). Just statistically speaking, getting a buck over 7.5 yrs old is pretty unlikely. From the book "Ecology and Management of Mule Deer and Whitetail Deer in MT", FWP estimates (via several studies) adult male mule deer total annual mortality at 41.4-61.2%. Lets just say that total annual mortality is 40% of any age male (in reality it would be higher for fawns). In R7 in 2015, population estimate was 103,812 mule deer. For arguments sake, lets say that the 50,000 fawns were born at a 50% split in sexes, so 25,000 males. From birth to 7.5 yrs old, you would see these numbers surviving at the start of each year:

2015 (fawn)- 25,000 males
2016 (1.5)- 15,000 males
2017 (2.5)- 9000 males
2018 (3.5)- 5400 males
2019 (4.5)- 3240 males
2020 (5.5)- 1944 males
2021 (6.5)- 1166 males
2022 (7.5)- 700 males

At 7.5 yrs old, ~2.8% of your original males are alive. This is assuming lower fawn mortality rates and taking the lowest annual mortality. If you increase the mortality to 50%, 7,5 yr old deer are 195 males, 0.8% the original fawn #'s. Spread that out over the landscape....

Anyway, I'm curious to know the actual ages of @Greenhorn's deer.

View attachment 262834View attachment 262835

See post #71. I think those are the ages of the bucks he posted. I was high by a year on one and low by a year on the other.

 

[sclancy27]

See post #71. I think those are the ages of the bucks he posted. I was high by a year on one and low by a year on the other.

Oh, thanks. I must have missed that one.

 

[rogerthat]

The top buck was aged at 6.5 yr. IMO, the bucks @Greenhorn posted had less wear. The bottom buck was aged at 4.5 yr. The bucks more closely related to that wear pattern, with one buck showing more wear, hence the 4.5 & 5.5 guess. Now, I could be wrong. Waiting for him to post actual ages.

IMO, people are always over-aging deer if not doing cementum (I guess even that can be wrong). Just statistically speaking, getting a buck over 7.5 yrs old is pretty unlikely. From the book "Ecology and Management of Mule Deer and Whitetail Deer in MT", FWP estimates (via several studies) adult male mule deer total annual mortality at 41.4-61.2%. Lets just say that total annual mortality is 40% of any age male (in reality it would be higher for fawns). In R7 in 2015, population estimate was 103,812 mule deer. For arguments sake, lets say that the 50,000 fawns were born at a 50% split in sexes, so 25,000 males. From birth to 7.5 yrs old, you would see these numbers surviving at the start of each year:

2015 (fawn)- 25,000 males
2016 (1.5)- 15,000 males
2017 (2.5)- 9000 males
2018 (3.5)- 5400 males
2019 (4.5)- 3240 males
2020 (5.5)- 1944 males
2021 (6.5)- 1166 males
2022 (7.5)- 700 males

At 7.5 yrs old, ~2.8% of your original males are alive. This is assuming lower fawn mortality rates and taking the lowest annual mortality. If you increase the mortality to 50%, 7,5 yr old deer are 195 males, 0.8% the original fawn #'s. Spread that out over the landscape....

Anyway, I'm curious to know the actual ages of @Greenhorn's deer.

View attachment 262834View attachment 262835

I agree the buck in your top photo appears from your photo to have more wear than either of greenhorns. Was that a whitey or a muley? I think that illustrates clearly the limitations of tooth wear aging. I’m self taught by keeping a bunch of jaws and sending in teeth to Matsons so my basis is from jaws of harvested lab aged critters. I can be wrong both ways is what I have found. My goal is to be within a year as I think that’s about as good as anyone can do with tooth wear aging.

 

[sclancy27]

I agree the buck in your top photo appears from your photo to have more wear than either of greenhorns. Was that a whitey or a muley? I think that illustrates clearly the limitations of tooth wear aging. I’m self taught by keeping a bunch of jaws and sending in teeth to Matsons so my basis is from jaws of harvested lab aged critters. I can be wrong both ways is what I have found. My goal is to be within a year as I think that’s about as good as anyone can do with tooth wear aging.

Both were mulies. Definitely shows the variance. Although, either or both of the cementums could be wrong also. I wonder how much $$$ an aging setup would run. Microscope, dye, slides, saw. I wonder what kind of saw they are using....

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

Both were mulies. Definitely shows the variance. Although, either or both of the cementums could be wrong also. I wonder how much $$$ an aging setup would run. Microscope, dye, slides, saw. I wonder what kind of saw they are using....

Not cheap

 

[sclancy27]

Not cheap

That is kinda what I figured.

 

[nrpate05]

You may have seen this research already, but just goes to show how difficult it can be to field age deer.

Study: Deer’s lifelong fate is affected by mother’s health at birth - WyoFile

Multi-generational research shows health of a mule deer mother at time of birth may influence lifelong size of offspring.

wyofile.com

This is interesting. Makes me think all those forkies and small three/four points I've shot over the years are actually old, mature bucks....

 

[Carl 9.3x62]

This is interesting. Makes me think all those forkies and small three/four points I've shot over the years are actually old, mature bucks....

For sure

 

[Ought Six]

This is interesting. Makes me think all those forkies and small three/four points I've shot over the years are actually old, mature bucks....

Had to be

 

[rogerthat]

This is interesting. Makes me think all those forkies and small three/four points I've shot over the years are actually old, mature bucks....

Bunch of old warrior trolls to old to breed does I would imagine

 

[ImBillT]

Sorry it took so long! I’ve been super busy!

I got the pics all sorted out on which deer they belong to. I know which jaws belong to which deer, but somehow when I take a picture of them all, I had trouble making the connection.

This one was aged 3.5. I feel like that one was reasonably obvious.

I don’t remember if I weighed the meat from this one. If I did, it’s written somewhere, but I’m not sure where. Lol.

 

[ImBillT]

Also 3.5yrs, also fairly obvious.

I got 107lbs of meat which was my highest yield until last year.