Kudu cow size and age

[treeman]

After reading TStones "old Warthog" post, I got to thinking about Kudu cows again.

How do you judge a kudu cow?

Ok! I know that there are times when a old cow stands there and you know its a old cow, you can just see it, but these are generally old so as in past usable - skin and bones.
How do you judge a cow thats big and not young, but old enough to say she has done her breeding and reached size.
Me, I can not. If I see 5 young cows which are small and one big one, the big one gets bigger till its big enough and I shoot it. At R3000 for 70 odd kg thats not a good buy.

Enter next scenario, I see some young small cows and decide to draw my credit with the farmer and shoot my free cow, good soft eating meat.
Get to the animal and its "gees! Nice cow Dave, must be a good 115Kg" There I was thinking 70 kg - 80 on the far side.

[treeman]

seems everyone is just as at a loss.

[Kola]

If she tried to kill you she is old.

[AndreVal]

I shot a kudu cow this year that dressed 98kg and due to her size also thought she was a old one. Farmer reckon she was between 3 and 4 years of age. Had a shot on an old cow and PH told me I should pass as she is small bodied which I did. And now that I think about it I also dont know

[treeman]

I shot a kudu cow this year that dressed 98kg and due to her size also thought she was a old one. Farmer reckon she was between 3 and 4 years of age. Had a shot on an old cow and PH told me I should pass as she is small bodied which I did. And now that I think about it I also dont know

*************************
Never met someone who could tell. When close you are able to visually see a large animal as large object, but at any distance it becomes a matter of comparisons to other objects, seldom does a cow have a neck,shoulder muscle or horns to gauge from.

I have a thread on GS where I shot a lone kudu cow standing next to a fence post, the post was just under her shoulder - a monster of a beast.
On collecting carcass, it was found the post was in a slight hollow and the animal came home at 58 kg.
My mate Gideon also shot a large cow standing under a umbrella tree, her back well into the branch's. The animal was tiny and the tree basically a stunted version of its close by neighbors.

[pre 64]

Many years ago i shot 2 cows across a small kloof. This was the days before range finders.it was across dead ground and,while it was light,the sun had not yet risen fully.
I had totally messed up. What i thought was 2 Kudu cows at about 200m was in fact little more than biggish calves at half that distance.
I can still see the wtf look on the farmers face when i arrived at the skinning shed with these animals. Not my finest moment and i learnt a couple of lessons that day.
It is possible to judge a cows size if the distance is known and there are multiple animals or they are relatively close.
An animal that is probably the easiest to mess up on is a Gemsbuck as the horns grow in proportion to the body size and i have seen a couple of youngish animals shot by experienced hunters who took them to be big mature animals.

[Ds J]

If the cow is between several other animals, it is easier to judge the size, but even then we can make mistakes.

I visited a farm and we went out early on a cold morning. The guide showed me an animal which looked large bodied. I shot it and on arrival we saw that it was a young cow, basically a large calf. The only explanation was that her hair was on end, and that she was slightly before the other animals.

Something similar happened to me with oryx. A farmer asked me to shoot two bulls, so we agreed that I would take out the largest and heaviest animal with thick horns. On arrival, it was a very dead and very pregnant cow. For the second animal, I asked the farmer to point one out, to prevent my previous mistake. He pointed, I shot, and on arrival it was the smallest, oldest cow in the herd. Her teeth were worn down to the gums. She had a defect with her horns - for some reason, she had experienced stunted growth, resulting in her looking like a bull. She was slightly bigger than a blesbuck.

[TStone]

It is easy to give pointers on how to judge the sex, size and horn size of game animals, sitting in front of a PC screen, at the counter of a gun shop or around a fire but turning that advice into practice in the field is not that simple. Experience does help a lot but even very experienced hunters do make mistakes. Telling a kudu cow or a mountain reedbuck ewe (or any other hornless antelope) from a calf or lamb of the same species is very difficult. Very young animals does have that "baby" look to their faces but describing it is difficult and making a mistake is very easy. Also, hunters and especially desperate hunters often see what they want to see.

An easy solution to prevent disappointment with hunters primarily hunting for meat, as opposed to trophies, is to sell the game per kilogram (carcass weight) instead of at a fixed price. This also stop hunters from trying to shoot the very largest animal, to get better value for their money and allow a hunter to shoot a younger animal (better quality meat) without losing out financially. We have been doing this for some years and are finding more and more hunters who are motivated by meat quality more than quantity. This has led to more hunters actually using venison as table meat instead of turning a whole carcass into biltong and droëwors.

[treeman]

I feel better now, I am not alone.

[driepootx]

My late dad accompanied me on one hunt near Ellisras. The first morning we were out a sparrows and soon found some Impala. The ewe we could see was haloed by the rising son. My dad put the 303 over my shoulder and down she went. On arrival it is a lamb from the previous year. The guide carries the carcass back to the camp and I leave my dad there to continue hunting.

Not much later I find another herd of Impala. They start running across the road and when one stops, I let fly, faster than Jerry Miculek. On arrival at the carcass I find a little ram, smaller than the babe my dad had shot !!!!!!

On the same farm and another trip, I was walking back home when I noticed 3 warthog playing in an open area. I slowly walked up and at about 150m shoot one of them. Walking up to the carcass I hardly broke stride when picking it up by the rear legs.

It is not just kudu and gemsbuck that need careful inspection before taking the shot.