Not all abscesses in small ruminants are caused by Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis

Abstract

The study aimed to determine the prevalence and distribution of abscessed lesions, etiologic agent identification and assessment of histological lesions in sheep and goats slaughtered in a slaughter plant refrigerator with Federal Inspection Service in the State of Bahia. The amount of 153 samples of viscera and lymph nodes with abscesses of 1.148 slaughtered animals were collected. The highest prevalence in sheep was in males, aged 12 months, as in liver (21.2%) and prescapular lymph nodes (20.3%) the main affected organs. The prevalence in goats in male, aged 30 months and in retropharyngeal (25%) and prescapular lymph nodes (25%). The following microorganisms were isolated from the samples: Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis 33.33%, Escherichia coli 19.61%, Proteus mirabilis 9.80%, Pseudomonas aeruginosa 7.19%, Trueperella pyogenes 5.22%, Streptococcus spp. 5.22% and Staphylococcus aureus 4.57%. The macroscopic and histological lesions of abscesses collected presented no difference between isolated microorganisms.