Cancer Eye Cow

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K2011

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I haven't been out to the place in a while (about 3 weeks) and I noticed today that a cow has cancer eye (correct?) now I'm not 100% sure if she is going to have a calf but she should be due in late June I belive...we've never had a cancer eye cow before and I have no idea how fast this will progress...I know every case is pretty much different but for those of you that have seen this before how fast does it grow...what my main thing is should we let her raise another calf??? or send her on her way now...

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Ship her now. That is pretty advanced cancer eye. You will get docked at the sales barn, but you otherwise will likely have to shoot her before she weans her next calf.

When you wean your calves each fall, do a simple check on each cow:

- 4 working quarters
- good clean eyes
- can walk easily and freely
- good set of front teeth
- good soggy calf in the pen.

If we get a cow with the beginning of cancer eye,...no matter how good her calf is...she is gone. Some profit is better than none. :cowboy:
 
What gets me is that this really came on pretty quick...I mean I don't get up close and personal with each cow on a day-to-day basis but I thought I would have at least seen it a little quicker but anyways thank you for your comments
 
K2011":3j8fe2k6 said:
...what my main thing is should we let her raise another calf??? or send her on her way now...

Load her up and go to the sale.

By the time she weans the calf that eye will be waaaayyyy worse and the cow will not be a 'happy cow'.

Katherine
 
They can move pretty quick... I think my vet was ready to give me a chewing out for having noticed a small growth last year and got the vet to look at her at the earliest convenient opportunity - three weeks later.

I didn't know then that a few weeks could be enough to condemn her.
Both cows he's looked at recently had the growth heading inwards from the corner of the eye, so they were invisible without actually peeling the eye open. The first - growth removed, eye got infected and required further treatment, cow is now doing well. The second - growth too far advanced, removed eye, cow is doing well (it's the weirdest thing watching a one-eyed cow lead the herd over the road crossing). It's an expensive business and they were two of my best cows. Surgery isn't 100% - there's still the chance of the cancer having spread too far or returning.

This one is too far gone to just cut out the growth. The only chance of saving her a few months longer is (if the cancer hasn't spread beyond the tumour) to cut out the eye.
 
I sold one yesterday, that had it for 6 months. Eyeball was almost gone. Vet said wean the calf then sell her. I felt sorry for her. Didn't take much of a hit on price. It never spread past the eye.
 
my best cow had it and you couldn't see it unless you lifted her eyelid up. but her eye watered real bad for the whole summer. that is what made me look. herefords are prone to cancer eye.
 
jcarkie":3o162ygh said:
my best cow had it and you couldn't see it unless you lifted her eyelid up. but her eye watered real bad for the whole summer. that is what made me look. herefords are prone to cancer eye.

Her full-blood sister had what looked to me as cancer eye and if any of yall remember I posted a thread about her last summer but after about a month or so later it basicly fell off(well the 'scabby' part anyway and now you can't even see anything -- it looks just like a normal eye and all the swelling has gone down)...???? weird...but you can also see the difference in the 2
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It's hard to exactly tell by your pictures,if that growth is on her eye lid or her eye.I think it looks more to appear on her eyelid and is a growth.If it is on her eye and if she is a good cow why ship her,just get the vet to remove the eye,then she will be as good as new.I have 2 cows that i had there 1 eye removed,doesn't even bother them now and they have raised a lot of good calves since then.If it is on her eye lid,it will just scab over and then it will fall off.I had a cow that had a growth on her eyelid,would get like that for a while,then it would scab over and then it would fall off again and then she would be good for quite some time.She made it to 17 years of age like that,and then one fall she showed up open.So i would get the vet to actually have a look at the cow,if she is a cow worth saving.
 
This particular cow really isn't worth saving...she's on the smaller side and really never raises a good calf she's just a cow in the pasture nothing special about her at all....
 
Have the vet out to preg check her. If she is bred have the growth removed allow her to raise the calf and ship her.
Some cows get condemned for that type of growth.
 
Its impossible to predict how quickly that cancer will spread or even how fast that carcinoma will grow. I've seen cases where it went from that to complete carcass condemnation in weeks and other cases where the cow continued to raise calves for a few years after that.

Typically a growth that grew as quickly as you've said will continue to do so, so the safer option would be to fatten her and ship her as soon as possible. Its worth noting that the eyeset is very poor making the eye very much unprotected.
 
I would have the vet remove the eye if she is pregnant. then ship her and the calf this fall.
 

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