How old is this Roe ?

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Glen Cadwallader said:
Morning Gents.

All things considered, Head, facial greying, behaviour and stance when alive coupled with wear on upper and lower jaw, missing teeth on the top, the nature of the climate and feeding.. I have placed him as 8 going into his 9th year.

In any case, quite old.

My experience of ageing Jaw bones is all from Red's though so I will stand corrected if any more roe educated person would care to chime in!
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Been having another look, quite a bit of wear saw edge gone from the outside edge as one would expect.
saw edge gone from inside edge of premolars so normally 4 + saw edge still visible on inside edge of molars would normally expect this to have disappeared by 8 years.

Roe have shorter lives then Red deer so tooth wear is faster in Roe, when comparing wear between Red and Roe
Roe will be 2 to 4 years younger than Red with similar wear pattern.

Back to the photograph while the face is grey, the curly patch of hair in front of the antlers found in old bucks while there it is not as prominent as I would expect it to be in a buck of 8 or 9 years.

Have you cleaned the head if you have the joint in the skull should have more or less disappeared if he is as old as you suspect.
 
Excellent, thanks for that, all makes sense to me and noted re the comparison to reds.

I gave the head to one of the lads from the site here so I'll ask him later today to have a look at the skull joint and let me know.

Based on what you're suggesting he could be as young as 5yrs? I don't think that would figure but I'd run with 7!

What's the oldest Roe you've come across?
 
Glen Cadwallader said:
Inland chaps, certainly not abrasive/sandy.

I'm afraid the jaws were thrown away, it's certainly the oldest Roe I've ever shot.

Bogtrotter, would you not agree he was "going back" ?
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When looking at the teeth alone, I would think your age estimation is not far out, but looking at the photograph I see nothing that shows great age, in my area I would expect a buck of 8 or 9 to have a grey face with a patch of rough curly hair in front of the antlers, would expect the antlers to be shorter but heavier with bluntish points
heavy cornonets with a pronounced droop on the outside edges.
 
bogtrotter said:
When looking at the teeth alone, I would think your age estimation is not far out, but looking at the photograph I see nothing that shows great age, in my area I would expect a buck of 8 or 9 to have a grey face with a patch of rough curly hair in front of the antlers, would expect the antlers to be shorter but heavier with bluntish points
heavy cornonets with a pronounced droop on the outside edges.
Click to expand...

All noted thanks. He did look a lot more grey in the field, but I know what you are saying re the patch of curly hair and the rounded points.
 
Short of having a tooth sectioned ageing animals at best will be an educated guess,while hearing of people shooting bucks as old as 12, I personally have never come across one, the oldest I have had was 10 [ client had a tooth sectioned ] he had very short antlers about the length of my thumb but thick with massive coronets, teeth flat no sharp edges and worn down to just above the gum line, incisors loose.

In my area, which can be quite harsh , a buck will start to go back from 6 years on and a 9 year old will be a very old man indeed.
 
I'd say he's a young-middle aged buck in fantastic shape. certainly not going back, I'd say he's in his prime and apart from hanging on the wall should be left for a few more years. facial colouring is not grey, there's no curling of hair in front of the antlers, the coronets are not sloping more than you'd expect from such a large 6 pointer. I'd say the general face is bulky and not the sleek 'old' elongated look of the older bucks, same with the nose shape and colour. I'd say the tooth wear is more due to the height at which he's been browsing, it's created an angled wear pattern and eroded the teeth excessively.

I'd give him 4-6 as an age bracket.
 
I'm always ready to learn in this game but I am not convinced all the talk of curly bits in front of the antlers, facial greying and antler growth is a very effective way of ageing a Roe deer with any accuracy. It might give rough indicators if you were to add it to all the area specific information you might have collected over the years and also having watched the deer prior to the shot.

The only time I could give an age in the field with any certainty is at the 12/13 month 3 to 2 crown premolar stage. The rest is rough estimation to within a 3 year bracket and pick the middle number! Makes a good debate though.

No one has mentioned coat change? If he was shot recently is he not quite late? He would be down here in the south anyhow.
 
not sure, two weeks ago the young bucks were changing their coats in the east borders, I expect the older bucks to be changing their coats right around now.
 
6 - 7 year old clearly going back and wanted shooting if i'm wrong and its a young animal with that poor head it also wanted shooting
 
I'd love to find out the 'real' age, we're all reasonably experienced stalkers on here, some more than others, but the responses have a huge variance which just goes to show how difficult it is to judge age in roe, and subsequently how difficult it is to carry out a good deer management plan by trying to select deer on anything but poor heads, apparent illness/injury, or yearlings.
 
PKL - Currently working on getting that information if I can!

Wallace.. Great to have you out yesterday, looking forward to the next trip.
 
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