Photo by Linda Gustafson

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Kusamona, one of our male black rhinos, had a growth on his back that we biopsied and were worried about being cancerous

The test results came back and we decided that we should immobilize him and excise the growth. We had two of the vets from the Ft. Worth Zoo come out to help us with the procedure. All went very well. Holly Haefle, DVM, our lead vet, excised the growth along with about 2 cm on all sides and down into the skin about 1 cm. This was all sent off to the lab where they informed us that we removed all the malignant cells and all is well. He is re-growing his skin nicely and we are treating it mainly with mud.

Some of you may remember the huge gash that our white rhino bull Marvin got from one of the females. It was about 3 inches wide, a foot long and at least two inches deep. He kept it full of mud and it healed nicely. We hope the same thing will happen for Kuso. Also in the black rhino world. Coco has a defect on the sole of her foot. We have been treating this off and on for awhile. It was nearly completely healed, but she has it again, so we are working on keeping that clean and helping it heal. Soles of feet aren't the same as skin when it comes to healing. The skin is very vascularized and was designed to heal quickly after a big fight with another rhino. The feet can get infected more easily and we worry more about damage to the feet than we do damage to the skin. Hopefully, she'll work out fine and this hole will heal too. We don't know why this happens to her and not the others.