Poor teeth on Bucks

Interesting find…I was looking at the skull of a small buck shot this fall. Very interesting rack as it had 4 points that were tall and fine(think 1.5-2.5 yr old) on one side and the other side had only one six inch point that grew next to his head towards his nose. I then skinned the skull out and took a look at its teeth. Much to my amazement, it had almost no teeth left. They were as worn as I’ve ever seen on a deer that had just been shot. My only question was its age. With fine and clean tines I normally think younger deer and it’s body went about 175-180 lbs dressed.

My question is: has anyone ever seen this before? I would assume deer can get poor teeth, just like a human could get. Do you think that this caused the abnormal growth.

I’ll see if I can post a pic later.

Based on what you’re saying I think you have a deer that’s older than 2.5. Maybe a lot older and on the decent downwards. It will be interesting to see the pics.

i think maybe a disease…there is no reason for an animal to have lost all its teeth at 1.5-2.5 y/o. If it was a disease, that could explain his poor antler development…just throwing another idea in there but im no expert

i doubt it was diseased if it weighed 170-180 field dressed. that is actually a good size buck. most people’s “200+ lb bucks” are actually closer to 150-160 lbs.

i bet that deer may have been older, unless it was eating gravel like a pheasant.

A 1.5 year old will have 3 badly worn premolars. These are temporary teeth and will be replaced next summer. The third premolar will have 3 crowns which is another characteristic of a yearling. When the next molar comes in, it will only have 2 crowns and the buck will be a 2.5 year old.

Basically I was going to say the same thing as Brad, you found one with “baby teeth”

Not the greatest pics, but you should get the point. I should have taken a picture of a 3.5 yr old from the same farm that I took a couple of years ago to compare. It’s teeth looked great compared to this.

I have a 3 1/2 yr old with buck teeth!

Now if I could just get her to quit sucking that thumb!!