Diagnosing and Investigating Heart Disease in Feedyard Cattle

This review summarizes current knowledge of non-infectious heart disease and congestive heart failure in feedyard cattle, emphasizing epidemiology, risk factors, timing, and diagnostic approaches. Although overall mortality risk is low, cardiac disease represents a meaningful contributor to feedyard deaths, and subclinical cardiac remodeling appears far more common than overt failure. Disease occurrence spans the feeding period, with many cases emerging near the end of the production cycle, suggesting a progressive, multifactorial process involving pulmonary vascular changes, prior disease, and possible genetic susceptibility. Interpretation of gross heart changes alone is insufficient, as morphologic remodeling does not always indicate functional failure.