Did you know that high altitudes can have a significant impact on cattle herds? Kaylen Stearns, a graduate research assistant at Oklahoma State University, talked about “high altitude disease” and congestive heart failure in beef cattle.
“High-altitude disease is a non-infectious disease in beef cattle that usually impacts cattle above 5,000 feet of elevation. It’s more common in the Mountain West. The lack of oxygen at those elevations causes hypertension, which then leads to remodeling of the pulmonary arteries, and due to lack of blood flow because of the remodeling, the animal will then die. There’s no treatment or cure for this disease, and the only recommendation that they have is to take those animals from areas of higher elevations to areas of lower elevation to try to alleviate the stress.”
To help manage the challenge, producers in higher elevations use a pulmonary arterial pressure, or PAP, score.
“PAP scores were invented as a way for producers to help try to mitigate the risk of high-altitude disease in their beef cattle herds. So, a PAP score essentially measures the pressure at the pulmonary artery, and a licensed veterinarian, usually they’ll run a catheter from the jugular all the way to the pulmonary artery, and then take a systolic and diastolic measurement, very similar to human blood pressure. It’s both measured in millimeters of mercury, and from there, then they take a mean PAP score, and those producers can then use selection decisions to decide whether they want to keep that animal and determine their survivability at high altitude. So, scores will range anywhere from 30 to greater than 50, and the lower scores are more desirable.”
Don’t assume cattle are immune to congestive heart failure just because they’re at lower elevations.
“Bovine congestive heart failure is found more at lower elevations. It’s more common in the feedyards. Essentially, the stress from being asked to perform and being pushed on feed causes these animals to experience some stress, and then this will, once again, cause an elevation in their blood pressure and hypertension, which then leads to remodeling of their heart, once again. So, it differs slightly, because it’s obviously found in lower elevations, but I do think when we discuss high altitude disease and bovine congestive heart failure, I do think we’re talking about two sides of a very similar coin.”