Do cows get cancer, and is it serious?

Warts present with flat or pedunculated growths on the head/face, neck and trunk.

Dear Daktari

Thanks for your informative articles every week. I enjoyed the piece on 4-K Clubs last week. I have a query.

Last year, in my herd of seven dairy crosses, four suffered from warts. This included one of my good cows, and two calves and one heifer.

I was worried as I had seen same warts with my neighbours’ cows.

Most farmers still associate this disease with witchcraft perhaps from the shape of warts. One of my sick animals suffered badly and had big warts.

Luckily three of the sick animals recovered within a short time but one of the calves had big warts that slowed down its growth, but it has since recovered. What is the remedy for these warts?

[Jackson Mulinge, Machakos County]

Thanks Mulinge for reading The Smart Harvest and for your great question. Papillomatous warts are very common. I can bet all the farmers reading this article have already seen these rusty, crackly growths on their cattle or the neighbour’s. They are caused by Bovine Papilloma virus and are scientifically referred to us papillomatosis or fibropapillomas. It has nothing to do with witchcraft.

Warts are spread from one animal to the other through contact or equipment like halters, milking machines and dehorning tools. Mulinge’s cattle most likely got the infection from the neighbour’s then spread among his herd.

Clinical Signs

Warts present with flat or pedunculated growths on the head/face, neck and trunk. They can also grow on teats in cows and on penis in bulls. Infected bulls can spread warts to the cows during mating. Warts will normally not result in negative health effects but when in large numbers and size can cause stunted growth in calves and reduced productivity in adult cattle. They may bleed when rubbed leading to secondary bacterial infections. Warts are common in calves due to low immunity.

Warts will appear two months after exposure to the virus and will in most instances clear within six months even without any treatment.

How do you treat and prevent Warts?

Warts will clear on their own even without treatment within six months. Surgery can be done where they are pedunculated and have a stalk. Autogenic vaccine – (prepared from very warts and injected back into the animal) can be and has been used. There was once a vaccine being used in Europe in the 1980s to prevent warts but was withdrawn in 1990s for some undocumented reasons. There is also a wart ointment that can be applied; although I am not sure of its presence in the Kenyan market. I once saw it in the Netherlands.

To prevent the spread of warts within a herd and in a neighbourhood; separate sick animals from healthy ones. When an “outbreak” is suspected minimise activities like dipping that bring many animals together in close proximity.

[The writer is a veterinary surgeon and currently the head of communications at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) Kenya. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of FAO but his own]