Bovine Congestive Heart Failure Becomes a Growing Concern

Bovine Congestive Heart Failure Becomes a Growing Concern

Haylie Shipp
Haylie Shipp
It’s time for your Southeast Regional Ag News. For the Ag Information Network, I am Haylie Shipp.

Bovine congestive heart failure, BCHF, is being increasingly recognized as an emerging condition of cattle. According to the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, it’s an untreatable, fatal condition involving pulmonary hypertension that culminates in right ventricular failure…and it has the attention of the American Angus Association.

This week I had a chance to talk to their CEO, Mark McCully…

“The specific topic around bovine congestive heart failure is a topic that we’ve been looking at and researching for a number of years. We’re really trying to sort out is there a genetic component of that and, if so, what is it? And if there is a genetic component, of course we can build selection tools to select for healthier hearts or more resistance to any of those potential heart diseases that might be out there.

Again Mark McCully, CEO of the American Angus Association. He says they have exciting research happening right now and that they’re learning more every day.

USDA ARS says that for some producers, BCHF is the single most costly health-related problem with losses exceeding $250,000 annually in individual operations, even surpassing those from bovine respiratory disease.

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