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Pneumonia in sheep

Dr ProVet
Pneumonia in sheep is a danger alert of the sheep flock that can never be neglected.
It's the cause of 43.7% of deaths occurring in sheep.
It also has many other complications and economic risk factors that threaten the sheep flock.
Let's know more about pneumonia in sheep through this article.
This article will address the following:

• What's pneumonia in sheep? 

• Symptoms of pneumonia in sheep. 

• Is pneumonia in sheep contagious? 

• Complications and economic risk factors of sheep pneumonia. 

• Treatment of pneumonia in sheep. 

• Vaccination of sheep pneumonia. 

• Prevention of pneumonia in sheep. 

• Main causes of sheep pneumonia.

What is pneumonia in sheep?

It's an infection of one or both lungs of a sheep.


This infection causes inflammation in the alveoli where the fluids or pus accumulate, causing difficulty in breathing, and so sheep breathing fast. 

Symptoms of pneumonia in sheep

Symptoms are directly related to the form of pneumonia, There are two main forms of pneumonia:

An acute form of sheep pneumonia


This form can affect all ages but lambs are more susceptible with obvious clinical signs such as:

    • Fever causing chills or sweating.
    • Cough with or without mucus.
    • Fast breathing even during rest.
    • Loss of appetite.
    • Nasal discharge.
    • Pain in the chest especially with coughing.
    • Nausea or vomiting.

Chronic, progressive form of sheep pneumonia

    • It's more common in adults causing loss of functional lung tissue.
    • The affected sheep suffer from progressive dyspnea, anorexia, and weight loss.

Histopathology of pneumonic sheep lung

Pneumonia directly affects the lung tissue of the infected sheep.


The histologic examination of the lung of infected sheep shows all changes that occurred in the lung tissue as a result of pneumonia.


These changes are obvious in either gross and microscopic examination and differ according to the degree of infection.


So, histopathology is ideal evidence of infection of the examined carcass by pneumonia. and also determines the severity of the disease.

Is pneumonia in sheep contagious? 

The spreading of the disease from animal to animal depends on the causative agent.


Most respiratory diseases especially those with viral origin are contagious and can be easily spread among sheep flock.


Transmission of infection occurs through:

  • Direct contact to infected sheep, as the causative organism is present in all body secretions of the infected sheep.
  • Newborn lambs can be infected via suckling milk from infected ewe.

Complications and economic risk factors of sheep pneumonia

There's a study on the causes of sheep mortality under farm conditions in Northern Tanzania.

This study targeted the rates of the diagnosed causes of mortality in 728 sheep who died from 2005 to 2017.


The results assured that pneumonia is the highest rate as a mortality cause in sheep by 43.7%.


starvation is the second main cause of death by (18.4%).


Then abscess shared with (15.5%), followed by hairball (4.39%), helminths (4.26%), plant toxin (3.43%), bloat (3.16%).


Also, traumatic injuries are assumed to be a cause of sheep mortality by (1.92%), snake bite (1.78%), liver cirrhosis (0.82%), pox (0.69%), and salmonellosis (0.69%). 


The study assured that least causes of mortality included enteritis (0.41%), dystocia (0.41%), coccidiosis (0.27%) and obstructive atelectasis (0.14%).


So, Pneumonia in sheep in either form is costly and causes an economic loss as a result of:

  • High mortality rate.
  • Bad quality of the carcass.
  • High costs of antibiotic treatment with various responses.
  • Economic loss due to lung condemnation in abattoirs after slaughtering.
  • Low growth rate.

All these losses can be avoided by consideration of prevention principles, and vaccination plans.

Treatment of pneumonia in sheep 

Treatment of pneumonia in sheep includes therapeutic treatment in addition to some instructions that must be considered to avoid complications and spreading of the disease such as:



  • Isolation of infected animals.
  • Provide a shaded, clean, good ventilated area.
  • Disinfection of the pieces of equipment used for water and food.
  • Supply the animal with fresh cool water to compensate for the liquid loss.
  • Administration of a suitable therapeutic treatment that includes both basic and supportive treatment.

Basic treatment

It mainly depends on antibiotics such as:

  • Ceftiofur

It's the only antibiotic that's FDA-approved.


Its Daily dose is 0.5 - 1 mg/lb body weight by intramuscular injection (I/M) for three days.

  • Penicillin 

Daily Intramuscular injection of penicillin to the pneumonic sheep by 1ml/100 lbs body weight for 4 consecutive days maximally has a good recovery effect.


The penicillin vial must be warmed at room temperature and shook well before use.


Avoid injection of more than 10 cm penicillin in one site of the muscle.


The diagnosis and treatment course can be re-evaluated if no improvement is observed within 48 hours.

  • Tetracycline 

It's a rapidly absorbed broad-spectrum antibiotic that can affect most Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.


Dissolving 1 gm of tetracycline powder/ 25kg body weight and given as a drench in water twice daily for 4-5 days is the perfect dose.


Treated sheep must never be slaughtered for at least 5 days after the last dose.

Supportive treatment

Using food supplements and multivitamins is so important to compensate for the low amount of food due to appetite loss.


Vitamin C supplements decrease heat retention and so help with the maintenance of body temperature.


Adding Electrolytes to water compensates for losses of body liquids.

Prevention of sheep pneumonia 

The prevention measures and minimizing risk factors are the optimal key for protecting the sheep flock and also getting a healthy flock including:

  • Presence of hygienic environmental factors.
  • In a heatwave, putting out additional hay and bicarb soda (2% in the ration) or in tubs is very effective.
  • Improving the cool water supply and shade.
  • Minimizing exposure to dust as possible.
  • Decreasing the number of animals in each pen.
  • Good nutrition improves the immune response, so the diet must have enough protein, energy, lime, roughage, salts, and vitamin A.
  • Ensuring vaccination of the sheep at the time. 

Vaccination against pneumonia in sheep 


The vaccine used against pasteurellosis pneumonia in Sheep is an inactivated vaccine contains pathogenic microorganisms, but they are inhibited by formalin and emulsified with oil.


 Sheep are injected with 1 cm of vaccine Subcutaneously in the neck, and the same dose is repeated after 4 weeks.


 Sheep are vaccinated before birth 6-8 weeks in two doses, 4 weeks apart.


The vet decides to vaccinate newborn lambs at the age of 8 weeks if the mother is vaccinated, and at the age of one week if the mother is not vaccinated. 


Vets recommend using a booster dose annually, every 12 months.

Instructions to follow when using Pasteurella vaccine

 Some measures must be taken into account when vaccinating sheep against pneumonia, including:


  •  Sheep are vaccinated 4-5 weeks before the onset of the disease, in areas where the disease appears seasonally.
  •  If the disease appears in an epidemic form, the herds in the vicinity of the disease onset are vaccinated as soon as possible.
  • The bottle should be shaken well before and during use.
  •  The vaccine should be stored away from light, at 4 - 8 °C, and not subject to freezing.  But it is used for vaccination after its temperature reaches room temperature (25°C).
  •  Only healthy sheep should be vaccinated.
  •  Do not mix the vaccine with any other vaccine.
  •  It is preferable to use a vaccinator gun or sterile syringes for vaccination.
  •  The vaccination program ends 21 days before the slaughter of sheep for human consumption.
  •  Determining the treatment plan and the principles of prevention requires a good knowledge of the possible causes of the disease.

Causes of pneumonia in sheep

Pneumonia in sheep occurs as a result of interaction between different agents including pathogens, animal immune responses, and physical environmental factors.


The pathogens that frequently cause pneumonia in sheep can be bacteria or viruses.


Bacterial pathogens

    3 types of bacteria mainly cause pneumonia in sheep, either as a primary or secondary infection.

  • Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae

It's a very small bacterium without a cell wall and so it's resistant to many antibacterial drugs.

It inhibits the tracheal ciliary function causing Mycoplasma pneumonia in sheep 

  • Pasteurella multocida 

  • Mannheimia haemolytica

These two pathogens are gram-negative bacteria and normal inhabitants in the sheep respiratory tract.

They can cause pasteurellosis pneumonia in sheep as a secondary bacterial infection to the viral infection or a primary infection under some stressful conditions, such as:


  • Transportation stress.
  • Viral infections.
  • Parasites of the lung.
  • Prior bacterial infections.
  • Overcrowded houses.
  • Sudden environmental changes.
  • Low ventilation and high humidity.
  • Poor nutrition.

All these conditions cause an overloading defense mechanism of the animal and allow bacteria (which normally live in the animal respiratory system) to be active and pathogenic causing disease.

viral pathogens

Viruses that cause viral pneumonia in sheep are, These Three viruses directly affect lambs, causing acute forms of viral pneumonia

  • parainfluenza type 3 (PI- 3).

  • adenovirus type 6.

  • respiratory syncytial virus

  • Lentivirus

It's more common in adults causing progressive interstitial retroviral pneumonia (in sheep, ovine progressive pneumonia, or maedi).


Viral infection is confirmed by nasal swabs isolation from a diseased animal or serum antibody detection. 


Finally, the prevention of pneumonia in sheep is a very important step to protect the sheep flock against further economic losses.



Written by: Dr. Mai Foda



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