The science

What the game teaches

State wildlife agencies and university deer programs teach hunters to estimate a live buck's age from his body: how long the legs look, how thick the neck is and where it joins the chest, how deep the chest and waist are, and whether the back and belly sag. The game teaches those clues.

The game uses three age groups, the same ones in the Texas Parks and Wildlife guide from the Kerr Wildlife Management Area: young (1.5 years), middle (2.5 to 3.5) and mature (4.5 and older).

How accurate the method is

It is an estimate. In a study of 70 wild bucks of known age, wildlife biologists looking at photos chose the exact age 36 percent of the time on average. A University of Arkansas summary of that work lists 62 percent right for yearlings and 30 percent for 4.5 year olds.

That is why the game scores age groups and not exact years, and why it says so on the score screen.

About the drawings

The drawn bucks are teaching diagrams. Their proportions change with age the way the guides below describe, slightly exaggerated so the clues read on a phone. Real deer vary more. Body size also changes with region and food, and a neck swells only in the fall breeding season.

About the jaws

The jaw pictures are simple teaching drawings of a lower tooth row seen from above. They show the order teeth come in: a three-cusped baby tooth and a missing third big tooth in fawns, a baby tooth that is still there with the last big tooth coming up at 1.5 years, and a two-cusped permanent tooth with all six teeth up at 2.5 years or older. The method was first described for northern deer, so the exact timing in Texas can vary.

Photo credits

Photographs of real bucks are from Aging on the Hoof by Eugene R. Fuchs, Kerr Wildlife Management Area, © Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. They are used here for education with credit, under the department's published policy. The ages shown are the ones given in that guide.

Sources

• Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Kerr Wildlife Management Area. Aging on the Hoof, by Eugene R. Fuchs.
• Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Aging Deer on-the-Hoof, by Byron Wright.
• University of Missouri Extension. Techniques for Aging Live Deer, by Emily Flinn, Robert Pierce and Jason Sumners.
• National Deer Association. Aging Bucks on the Hoof, by Kip Adams.
• Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. Aging Bucks on the Hoof.
• University of Tennessee. Considering antlers and estimating live age of bucks, by Craig Harper.
• University of Arkansas. Aging Whitetails (FSA9105), by Becky McPeake. Source of the 36 percent figure, from Ken Gee's study of 70 known-age wild bucks.
• Gee, Webb and Jacobson, 2014. Accuracy and implications of visually estimating age of male white-tailed deer using physical characteristics from photographs. Wildlife Society Bulletin.
• Flinn and others, 2015. Estimating age and antler traits of photographed male white-tailed deer.
• Stedman, 2018. How do you age bucks on the hoof? Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute deer meeting. Source for neck size as the strongest body clue.
• Guynn, Moore and Guynn, 2020. A Key for Aging White-Tailed Deer Using the Tooth Replacement and Wear Technique. Clemson Cooperative Extension, Land-Grant Press LGP 1093. Source for the Jawbone Lab: six teeth at 1.5, a three-cusped third premolar, and the third molar still coming up.
• Severinghaus, C. W., 1949. Tooth development and wear as criteria of age in white-tailed deer. Journal of Wildlife Management 13:195-216. The original method, summarized by Moreland, 2018, in Mississippi Sportsman.
• Foley and others, 2022. Accuracies and biases of ageing white-tailed deer in semiarid environments. Wildlife Research.