Major outbreak of suspected botulism in a dairy herd in the Republic of Ireland

This is the first report of a major outbreak of a paralytic disease in cattle on a farm in the Republic of Ireland. Thirty-six of 65 dairy cows were euthanased or died. A presumptive diagnosis of botulism was made on the basis of the clinical signs, the duration of the outbreak and the postmortem findings, and by ruling out other differential diagnoses.