Fungal Pneumonia
Fungi rarely cause primary pneumonia in goats.
Cryptococcosis
Cryptococcus neoformans var. neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii are saprophytic fungi common in soil, leaves, tree bark, and bird droppings.
They are yeast-like when grown on Sabouraud's glucose agar. A halo-like capsule surrounds the single cell, which may be budding; this morphology is distinctive (Gillespie and Timoney 1988). Infection is via inhalation. Focal lesions have been found in the lungs of goats slaughtered in the West Indies (Sutmoller and Poelma 1957). The major loss seems to be associated with carcass condemnation. In Western Australia, cryptococcal pneumonia is reported to be associated with clinical signs that include nasal discharge, coughing, dyspnea, and ill-thrift (Baxendell 1988; Chapman et al. 1990). In Spain, affected goats had wasting and respiratory signs, but sometimes liver or brain was also involved (Baro et al. 1998). An adult goat in Brazil showed coughing, anorexia, fever, and tachypnea (da Silva et al. 2016), while another goat had a large cryptococcal granuloma in the lung, but presented for neurologic signs caused by granulomas in the brain (Headley et al. 2019). No effective, economical treatment has been developed.Other Fungi
Although reports are few, other fungi can contribute to pneumonia in a goat that is immunosuppressed or that experiences inhalation of rumen contents. Animals that receive corticosteroids simultaneously with antibiotics may be at special risk.
Mycotic organisms isolated from goat lungs in slaughterhouse or necropsy studies include Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus flavus, Mucorales spp., Nocardia spp., Penicillium spp., and Candida spp. (Ikede 1977; Pal and Dahiya 1987; Chattopadhyay et al. 1992: Wapf et al. 2011). Pneumonia has been produced experimentally in goats by intratracheal inoculation of A. fumigatus spores (Mandal and Gupta 1993). Grayish nodules in the lungs may be seen and observation of organisms in histologic sections of lung and lymph node confirms the nature of the lesion, but clinical significance is unknown. In one goat, Aspergillus niger granulomas were limited to the nasal passages and skin of the head (do Carmo et al. 2014), in support of inhalation as the route of infection.
Pneumocystis carinii was found filling the alveolar air spaces of a 4-month-old Boer goat with severe diffuse interstitial pneumonia (McConnell et al. 1971). In goat kids in Uganda with Pneumocystis pneumonia, the main clinical sign was coughing (Kondo et al. 2014). In other species, at least, this organism is usually associated with immunosuppressive conditions.