It is popular to keep reptiles as pets in Swedish households. The number of households reporting reptile ownership is more than 15 000 (SCB, 2006). This means that a veterinary practice should consider how to take care of reptiles as patients. The aim of this study was to examine literature and studies concerning safe handling and restraint of reptiles as well as the effects of acute and long term stress response and to suggest a simplified plan for handling reptiles in a veterinary practice. The result of literary studies is that common recommendations for safe handling and restraint of reptiles is based on old techniques and experiences from safe handling of wild animals. The main concern is safety for the veterinary nurse and for the reptile. Stress studies indicate that acute stress response is not harmful for the animal i long term. On the other hand studies of the effect of prolonged stress are not conclusive.

Limb-sparing surgery aims to provide a functional pain free leg for the patient after removal of a local tumour in the leg. Reasons to perform limb-sparing instead of amputation can be arthrosis or hipdysplasia or other problems with the locomotor apparatus that makes the patient unsuitable for amputataion. Owner reluctance to amputate is another reason for limb-sparing. This master?s thesis is a case study of a dog with an osteosarcoma in its distal radius. The dog was treated by a limb-sparing method that uses the ipsilateral ulna as a vascularized roll-over autograft.

Aortic insufficiency is a very common valve problem in horses and most often affects older individuals, but nevertheless existent within younger ones. The root cause for aortic insufficiency can be varied, for example; endocarditis, ventricular septum defect or congenital valve disease but the most common are progressive valve degeneration or elite competition. Depending on the root cause, different changes can be observed on the aorta valves, but they do all have the same effect, the valves do not seal properly and blood leaks backwards. Many horses can, even with this deficiency, perform highly without any visible impacts and there is therefore no need to treat those subjects. Most often the symptoms arise at a later stage in life and they are, more often than none, put down for other reasons. In the occurrence of the clinical symptoms showing, treatment guideline is to inhibit these symptoms since the valve degeneration is presently irreversible.

Veterinary hospital care and advanced veterinary services are rapidly growing industries. As of January 1, 2010, veterinary nursing became a licensed vocation, the title of veterinary nurse became protected, and the act regulating competence among the professions of the veterinary field was extended. These changes, along with increased demands and expectations from owners, have given rise to greater demands on the staff's qualifications and have increased the need for well-educated staff with expertise in several different areas. The aim of this study was to find out what the licensed veterinary nurse can do in terms of rehabilitation for the hospitalized equine patient suffering from orthopedic injury. This has been carried out through qualitative interviews with veterinary surgeons experienced in treating such patients, and also by reviewing the relevant literature.

This student report is about neutering male and female cats and compares early ageneutering to neutering at the traditional age of 6 months.The main focus in this report is early age neutering, which means that neutering isperformed when the kittens are between 6 and 16 weeks of age. This technique has beenused by shelters in the United States for a long time, to prevent the adopted cats fromreproduce and contribute to the problem of overpopulation.Two different surgical methods are also addressed; the ventral midline incision and thelateral flank approach. Ovariohysterectomy and ovariectomy are also compared.I also address which drugs are preferable when kittens are neutered and some importantguidelines where you have to be extra careful when dealing with kittens.These guidelines are the preanesthetic evaluation, calculating drug dosages and preventinghypothermia, hypoglycaemia and stress.The report also has a summary of the concerns regarding early age neutering such asanaesthetic risks, growth disorders and growth plate fractures, urologic diseases andimmune system dysfunction, obesity, altered metabolism and behavioural changes.The sex hormones and how they change after neutering is also included.At the end of the report there is a compilation of a questionnaire that consists of eightquestions that I sent out to various animal hospitals and veterinary clinics in Sweden..

Today's Swedish large-scale forestry uses almost exclusively computer-aided bucking. It allows the harvester computer, using an optimisation price list (steering price list), to maximize the value of each tree. The optimisation price list can be adjusted so that the industry gets the raw material it demands from the forest. There are various simulation programs that can be used when constructing a optimisation price list. The simulation program merchandise a database of stem shapes using a given price list and mimics a harvester's work. To get the demanded raw material for the industry it is important to use a well-adjusted optimisation price list.

The behaviour of the red-tailed guenon (Cercopithecus ascanius) was studied over the course of nine days in the Sabaringo forest surrounding Kichwa Tembo Tented Camp near the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya. A focal animal instantaneous sampling method with a one minute interval was used to record the behaviours of the monkeys for approximately 12 hours a day, the day being divided into six shifts á two hours. This method has proven successful in earlier studies of red-tails in this area. The study subjects included both lactating and non-lactating females, juveniles and on some occasions the resident male. The purpose of this study was to examine the grooming behaviour of red-tailed guenons and whether or not the occurrence of grooming varies depending on monkey type (lactating or non-lactating) and time of day.

Anthelmintic resistance is a major problem in sheep husbandry all over the world. One way toslow down the development of anthelmintic resistance is to keep part of the parasitepopulation in refugia (unexposed to drugs) which will maintain the genes for susceptibilitywithin the population. Climate, type of parasite and drenching regimes effect the size of therefugia. Dilution of resistant with susceptible parasites, targeted treatment and targetedselective treatment are all management strategies that employ refugia. Dilution is possible butcomplicated.

Many tropical rain forests has been lost or degraded as a result of human activities and environmental factors. Since the level of biodiversity is high in the tropics, maintaining these areas is of great importance. Forests like these are often assumed to benefit from forest restoration and rehabilitation. The INIKEA project area in Eastern Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, aims to improve biodiversity and/or species richness in the degraded forest through enrichment planting with indigenous species. The objective of this thesis was to evaluate how different treatments (liberation, gap-cluster planting and line planting) affect the biodiversity of natural regeneration in different forest types in the Rain forest Restoration Experiment, located in the INIKEA project area.

Environmental destruction is a growing problem in our world. Almost every day there are new reports concerning that we have to do something about the greenhouse gasses. Simultaneously is the human constantly more eager to have a life with higher standards and therefore uses more energy. The environment is a question that is highly up-to-date and more people try to find solutions on how to save our planet. One way to decrease the energy demand is to build passive houses, where the houses don?t have any active heating.

Tail-biting in pigs is an animal welfare issue and in Sweden during 2002 the producers lost tree million Swedish crowns because of tail biting. This economic loss depends on the pigs which are discarded at slaughter because of tail biting. Tail biting can be separated into two stages, "pre-injury" and "injury". The aim of this study is to investigate if tail biting depends on environment or genetic background.A lot of research on the environments effects on the behaviour of pigs but not so much on the genetic effects has been performed. The frequency of tail biting in pig farms influence among others of environment enrichment, ventilation, gender and breed of the pig.

Yeast and Clostridia is a problem in silage for farmers as contaminated silage may result in poor animal health and milk quality. Clostridia can produce toxins that, when consumed, acts as neurotoxins, it may also cause blown cheeses if the Clostridia contaminates milk. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cause, effect and interaction of yeasts and Clostridia in silage. Clostridia are microorganisms which are strictly anaerobic and consume carbohydrates and protein in the silage. Yeast is a fungus that is facultative aerobic and feed on carbohydrates in the silage.

Botulism is a serious disease with high mortality that can affect horses. Due to this about 20-30 percent of the horses in Sweden are vaccinated against botulism. The purpose of this study was to see how common botulism is in the Swedish horse population and to se if a connection between feeding with haylage and botulism could be seen. In addition to this, the study aimed to find how common vaccination against botulism is among Swedish horses and on what grounds the diagnosis botulism is made. Medical records of horses being diagnosed with botulism at all the major large animal hospitals in Sweden between 1995-2005 were searched. In addition to this the database where general practitioners report their cases as well as the cases with botulism reported to the insurance companies were included. The results of this study show that only 0,03 percent of the Swedish horse population has been diagnosed with botulism during the time period this study covers. In all the cases included in this study the diagnosis was made based on clinical signs and in none of the cases verification by isolating the toxin was possible. In all cases where forage is noted in the journals the horse has been feed haylage which indicate that there is a connection between the use of haylage and botulism. Three horses died despite being partially vaccinated against botulism type B which indicate that a correct vaccination has to be done before the horse get any protection or that the correct diagnosis was not botulism type B..

This master thesis was conducted in order to investigate the effects of the browsing species Yeheb on animal tissues in Swedish landrace goats and to make a literature review in order to increase the knowledge of the importance of this plant for livestock production in Somalia. The evergreen Yeheb bush is a very important feeding source for grazing and browsing animals in Somalia during the dry period. Yeheb contains cordeauxiaquinone that stains the bones of the animals red/pink, which has been an increasing problem when exporting meat to foreign countries. In an experiment, two goats were fed dry and fresh leaves from the Yeheb bush for one and two months, respectively. The goats did not feed the intended amount of dry leaves, since the supply and palatability was not as high as estimated.

This master thesis was conducted in order to investigate the effects of the browsing species Yeheb on animal tissues in Swedish landrace goats and to make a literature review in order to increase the knowledge of the importance of this plant for livestock production in Somalia. The evergreen Yeheb bush is a very important feeding source for grazing and browsing animals in Somalia during the dry period. Yeheb contains cordeauxiaquinone that stains the bones of the animals red/pink, which has been an increasing problem when exporting meat to foreign countries. In an experiment, two goats were fed dry and fresh leaves from the Yeheb bush for one and two months, respectively. The goats did not feed the intended amount of dry leaves, since the supply and palatability was not as high as estimated.