We are using the T4 strain for our intranasal infections (40 microliter in PBS) with CFUs above 3000000 but never got mortality of C57BL/6. Any comment?
What are your issues? Pneumococcal animal models have already been performed and I have not read any published issues with regards to this. You can read studies by Iovino et al. (2013 until 2018).
Intranasal infection is not very pathogenic. Intratrachael infection can be better. I used D39 strain and did intratrachael infection C57BL/6 with CFUs 10^7. All the mice died within 4 days.