About one and one half years ago, we had a good cow get the cancer eye that invaded into the cornea. The vet said they cow would be rejected at the sale barn, so that meant we kill her and bury her which cost us about $100 OR she could remove the entire eye and sew the eye lids shut. The cost of that was $125. We opted for the surgery which included knocking the cow out, cutting out the eyeball, removing the tissue from the edges of the two eyelids and sewing them togetheter.
It is a bloody surgery and I assited. The cow woke up breifly in the middle of the surgery and scattered surgical tools hither and yon, but remarkedly, she has done very well. Delivered a beautiful calf later that year, weaned it and is now cooking another. There is no evidence of a recurrence. This was money well spent.
Had another cow develop a very early cancer on the nictatating membrane of the eye (the third lid some call it). We used our immobilizer on her and the vet picked up the membrane and cut it out after a bit of novacaine. Cow tolerated it well and has done well with no recurrence seen.
Billy