Enzootic pneumonia of lambs

Enzootic pneumonia of lambs is the most common and costly respiratory disease in sheep farming. “Enzootic” simply means that it is permanently established in the flock: it returns every year, on each flock of lambs, without the need for an external introduction. It is not caused by a single microbe. Mycoplasmas, small bacteria which cling to the carpet of cilia of the trachea and bronchi, prepare the ground; respiratory viruses often come before them; then banal bacteria, already present in the noses of all animals, descend into the lung and cause inflammation there. None of this is enough to make a well-housed lamb sick. What triggers the disease is almost always the environment: overcrowded sheepfold, confined air, straw and fodder dust, the smell of ammonia that hits the throat, sudden temperature differences between day and night, mixture of animals of different ages and origins. Its reputation as a “not serious” disease is misleading. It rarely kills, but it permanently damages the lungs of some of the lambs, which will never reach the expected weight at the expected age. It’s a silent loss, spread across an entire band.

📷 ACBahn, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

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