Squamous cell carcinoma in white-faced breeds

@Victoria Reck Barlow 13188 wrote:

Does anyone have experience with eye cancer in oxen?

Buck is an 11.5-year-old, 3000-pound, sweet-tempered, red and white Simmental who, along with his brother Ike, serve our town as ambassadors of open space protection. The team makes public appearances to promote land conservation, and every year has a starring role in a play. They are our town’s biggest rural characters, and are much loved.

On Friday the vet removed malignant tumors from Buck’s left eyelid, and his right eye socket.

We had first noticed inflamation during fly season of 2008; symptoms appeared to resolve during the winter, then resumed again this past summer, and failed to resolve after the weather turned.

The vet tells us that there is a high likelihood that the tumors will re-grow, and the cancer will spread. He says that white-faced breeds can be genetically predisposed, and UV may aggrivate the condition. Buck has always lived outdoors year-round, here in southern NH.

The big guy now seems thoroughly chipper, despite Friday’s ordeal — he was sedated, but remained standing (and humming) throughout the procedure. Now when we arrive at the pasture to apply the daily follow-up ointment, he comes running up to us. Even this soon after the surgery, we suspect he is much more comfortable. You wouldn’t have known, to look at him, that there was so much growth under and around his eyes.

To slow the cancer’s regrowth, the vet tells us we will have to devise ways to keep the flies out of Buck’s eyes. We’re looking for names/systems of foolproof insecticides, and ideas for ox-proof fly masks. Whatever we do will have to work in a 20-acre pasture of varied terrain/cover, where the team has free range.

I suspect we also will be looking for a mature big yoke-mate for Ike, before too long.

If you’ve dealt with any of this, I’d appreciate hearing your experience, as well as solutions for the flies . . .

We were prepared to face problems with feet, or legs, or hips, given Buck’s weight. Ironically, the vet said he is in great shape, in those departments. Never could I have predicted that his eyes would be his downfall.

I have never owned any cattle afflicted with this, but it was very common in our area at one time. The vets around here said the same thing that your vet is saying; white faced cattle can be more predisposed to this than solid faced animals are. Does not impact cattle with solid color faces or white faced cattle that have pigment around their eyes nearly so much, but it can happen. Most people in our area now select for animals with a ring of color around the eye or at least darkly pigmented skin, if they have white faced cattle.

Not sure if it would work or not on your oxen, but there is a good mask made specifically for this problem for horses called the Guardian UV Mask. Try googling “Guardian UV Masks” or type in http://www.horsemask.com in your browser and look at their site. The thing costs about $100.0 give or take a few, but if you had the dimensions of his head they could probably tell you if one of their models would fit his head or not. If it would fit him it would give you 95% UV protection, some mechanical protection from weeds and brusk poking him in the eye and it can be sprayed with fly spray to discourage flys and gnats bothering his eyes. Oh, and he would be able to see right through it so you could leave it on him while working … if you can make it fit.

I have two bulls in the lot with my horses, one weighs about 1,200 pounds and the other about 2,300 or so right now. On Thursday when I am home I will try my mask out and see if it would even come close to working on either one of them. If it would, it woud probably help your guys problem. Sure cheaper than salvaging him out and starting another steer.

I’ll let you know Friday what I come up with.

I see it occasionally around here. Not so much since we quit running Hereford cattle and made our Simmental cattle solid colored (mostly black now).
Most of the time when we found it on the range cattle it was too late for anything but cutting the eye out and taking a lot of the affected lids with thema and sewing the socket shut. If you did this in time the cow could live for years and years. We had quite a few one eyed cows running around. It would make it tough on your ox I suppose. Seems like if you don’t take the eye and all the surrounding tissue that could be affected, it’d come back with a vengeance.
I have one neighbor who runs 300 head of Hereford cows. He usually just ships those cows with bad eyes instead of taking the eye. My dad and I took lot’s of eyes out for neighbors as well. It’s a bloody, nasty job.