Abstract

Objective: To investigate the pattern of lung consolidation in natural infections and identify the risk factors associated with caprine pneumonia in Nigeria so as to elucidate and aid the understanding of caprine respiratory disease complex in Nigeria. Methods: A total of 700 goats were examined before slaughtering between March 2014 and July 2015. Ante mortem evaluation for physical characteristics, body condition, breed and sex, gross morphometry for estimation of the percentage of lung consolidation and histopathology was performed according to standard techniques. Data were presented in percentages, mean ± SEM and subjected to non-parametric analysis. Results: The results showed that 30.3% of goats belonged to the breed of West African Dwarf, 55.4% Red Sokoto (RS) and 14.3% Sahelan. As for the age distribution, 3.7% of them were one year old, 30.7% were two years old and 65.6% were above two years old. The overall prevalence of pneumonia was 59.7%. The mean lung consolidation score was 8.1 ± 0.5, consolidation for male was 7.8 ± 0.5 and 21.4 ± 7.7 for female (P < 0.05). There was more consolidation on the right lung and caudal lobes, and RS showed the highest prevalence of consolidation. There was a positive correlation of contralateral lobar consolidation in the pneumonic animals, while significant effect of sex and body scores on the lung consolidation was observed (P < 0.05). The types of pneumonia observed were bronchopneumonia (41.6%), bronchointerstitial pneumonia (8.7%), interstitial pneumonia (7.9%), verminous pneumonia (0.3%), granulomatous pneumonia (0.9%) and normal lungs (40.7%). Conclusions: Sex, breed and body scores were observed to be risk factors associated with caprine pneumonia in Nigerian goats. In this study, transport stress may be responsible for the high consolidation in RS. This information will help to increase the knowledge on the pathogenesis and the risk factors that often aggravate the prevalence of pneumonia in goats.

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