Need help aging a pheasant

[253CritterGetter]

Anybody have an idea on how old this guy might be? I’ve never seen a rooster with such sharp spurs.

[MR5x5]

Nice hold over bird for sure. I think age beyond 1 yr is a crap shoot, and spurs don't always tell the story. Some hold overs have small spurs...and some first years have long tails. Best first year check I know is to hold the bird by the lower beak.  A first year birds beak will bend in half a hold over will not.

[10mmg]

Agree it’s at least 1-2 years old. i have found that body weight is a big tell for birds harvested from the same area at the same time. older roosters tend to be noticeably heavier when all things are equal and have a lot more yellow fat. same thing happens to humans as well. the heads and beaks tend to be larger as well. of course none of these things are a perfect tell and it helps to have multiple samples to compare against. Last tell of older birds are the one who launch at 100 yards.

[DOUBLELUNG]

Best no-nonsense advice I've seen online:

Tail length? Spur Length? Weight? In actuality, aging older roosters is kind of like aging Dominican baseball players – your guess is as good as any. There is almost no way to tell 2-year old, 3-year old and, in extremely rare instances, 4-year old roosters apart.

[boneaddict]

I raised pheasants for years.  There is no appreciative way to tell how old once mature.