Investment costs for eight different type housing systems for dairy cows has been calculated in order to compare the building costs as a function of herd size, shelter type and automatization. A commercial calculation programme for building was used and complemented with prices of equipments specific for dairy cow building. Herd sizes were 120, 250 and 400 cows. The milking equipments were Automatic milking system (AMS), parallel parlour with 32 stalls (2x16) and rotary parlour with 24 stalls. Shelter was either insulated equipped with automatic cable driven scrapers on solid alleys, automatic feed wagon on rails, or uninsulated with manual manure handling and a tractor driven mobile mixer wagon on a drive-through feeding table. Building cost per cow or per kg milk was calculated using an average life time and 6 % interest rate and annual milk yield is 9 500 kg/cow and year. Structure effect 3-4 % higher for an insulated structure than in an uninsulated for 400 and 120 herd respectively. This is much lower compared to what is normally argued.

Milk ejection in dairy cows can be inhibited if oxytocin is not released from the pituitary gland. The problem with inhibition of the milk let down is not new, but has recently regained interest. It is observed during different types of emotional stress, for example when cows are moved to an unfamiliar environment, during oestrus, changing from suckling to machine milking or when being milked for the first time. The aim of the study was to examine the extent of cows with disturbed milk ejection in Sweden. A survey was sent out to 1000 dairy farmers in order to collect data about herd size, housing systems and routines at calving and milking.

This project is based on my fathers farm which lays outside Löberöd, twenty kilometres south of Eslöv in Skåne. While my family for some time have thought about building a new milkingstable with AMS(Automatic milking system) I decided to compare the AMS with a conventional milkingstable. We are abit concerned about how many cows we should have in the new stable. Because of that I calculated with two different number of cows. I have compared three different types of milking stables: One alternative is 180 cows milked in a double eigth hearing bone milking stable. The second alternative is 128 cows milked with two DeLaval VMS-robots. The third alternative is 171 cows milked with three DeLaval VMS-robots. One salesman from DeLaval and one salesman from A-betong helped me to get marketprices on the milkingrobots, building, ventilation and prices on all the concrete. In all the costs labour is included. The rest of the costs are calculated in a softwareprogram called K-data 03 which is a program with predicted costs. The calulations from the program showed that the price in the milkingpit system was 51 000 sek per cow.

Purpose There are almost infinite numbers of ways to build dairy farms in Sweden. When building a new free stall barn you have the possibility to affect both working environment and animal welfare for many years to come. The construction costs are influenced by which type of barn that is built and what functions it contains, for example one can predict that Automatic milking systems are more expensive to integrate than milking parlours. But what is the real cost of today for the construction of free stall barns with milking centres and how is it affected by construction methods and functions? Is the labour time influenced by the building costs? These are some of the questions this report will try to answer.

Livestock of pastoralists provide meat, milk, blood, dung and are useful for transportation purposes. In semi-arid and arid areas with very low precipitation the herder must often walk far distances to feed the livestock. This affects the animals? production, especially of milk. Previous studies have investigated how to improve milk production in terms of milking strategies in cattle.

Protein is an important component in various milk products and has a crucial role in the final quality. Excluding non-protein nitrogen, bovine milk contains about 3.3% protein whereas about 80% of this fraction consists of casein. There are four major members in the casein family: ?s1-casein, ?s2- casein, ?-casein and ?-casein. Proteolytic enzymes are the cause of degradation of the economically important milk proteins.

The milk production has developed rapidly the last years. The milk production per cow is increasing and the production units are larger with an increasing number of animals and a decreasing number of workers. Many milk producers invest in Automatic milking systems (AM) to meet this change. In these systems the cows can voluntary decide milking frequency and usually the milking frequency are higher than two times per day. But how does the milking frequency effect the composition of the milk? The aim of the present study was to study the effect of milking frequency on the milk composition and the milk fat quality.

Robotic milking in Automatic milking systems (AMS) is proposed to reduce manual labour and at the same time increase milk yield by increasing milking frequency. In order to increase milking frequency, it is essential to have well-functioning cow traffic. Investing in an AMS is a great capital investment for the farmer, thus it is of major importance to ensure maximal AMS capacity. This study investigated the effect of the traffic systems Feed First? and Free cow traffic with and without waiting area (WA) on cow performance and AMS capacity.

This master theses deals with different methods for automatic tuning of the existing controller for external axis. Three methods for automatic tuning have been investigated. Two of these are based on the manuell method used today. The third method is based on optimal placement of the dominant poles. Different sensitivity functions are important for this method.

A totally mixed ration (TMR) is a mixture of all the necessary feed components for the cow. She will eat the exact same feed in every bite which will make the rumen pH more stable and always supply her with a constant proportion between roughage and concentrate. This will make it possible for the cow to eat more dry matter (DM) a day because the fibre requirements are fulfilled. If a part of the concentrate is given separated from the mixture it is called partly mixed rations (PMR) and is almost always used when using an Automatic milking system (AMS). When using TMR and PMR it is important to have a high hygiene, be accurate when mixing the feed and to look after cows in a good and strict way. The aim of this study was to document different farms with PMR in an AMS to see which routines they have and how they are managing their production.

In Automatic milking Systems (AMS), cows are kept in a free stall barn equipped with one or several milking units (MU). The cows? activities in the system are called cow traffic. There are three types of cow traffic systems: guided, partly-guided and free. Free systems have no gates, allowing the cows access to the feeding and resting areas at any time.

This work has been done to develop a plan for a future dairy barn at theGästgivaregården and to show the space needed for cows and replacement heifers. Itwould also show the storage that will be needed. The design was largely based on resultsfrom studies on six different farms, but also the facts that are taken from research papersand articles in order to compare theory with practice. Because some farms only whereinterviewed by phone I have used a query form to obtain comparable resultes.The aim is to build a new barn with Automatic milking. I've drawn a milking stable for120 milking cow and replacement heifers with the capability to house up to 140 milkingcows if the farm would expand in the future.Calculations of feed amounts and space requirements have been made to see how manyhectares are needed to supply the cows and replacement heifers with feed and to knowabout what size of storage space is required.The investigations made in this writing are to answer questions about the AMS-unit`sposition and how to best maintain a good health status in the herd.

The trend in milk production is similar in Sweden and across the world; the farms are getting fewer but increasingly bigger. The costs for hiring workers are increasing, which results in more cows per animal keeper. Sensors can then be a great tool for keeping track of animals which need special attention. With a reported decreasing fertility, sensors that can detect oestrus even at low levels can be especially helpful in bigger herds to pinpoint the cows that may be in oestrus. The number of farms with dairy cows that install AMS, Automatic milking Systems, are increasing, and that also increases the need for sensors to control milk quality and composition when there is no visual control of the milk by a milker before milking starts.For the sensor data to be useful you have to have software designed to analyze and interpret the data to get relevant information that the farmer can use.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep, photoperiod, milk yield and hormones connected to milk formation. Variations of prolactin (PRL) and Insulin-Like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in plasma were measured during two different light programs. The light programs consisted of either 24 hours of light (L24:D0) or four hours of light and 20 hours of darkness (L4:D20). Five cows of the Swedish Red breed were used in a cross-over experiment and each light program consisted of five days. Milk yield was measured at every milking and milk samples were analyzed with regard to fat, lactose and protein.

The principal aim of this thesis is to test if extracts, produced by the automatic summarizer "Copernic Summarizer", are possible to use as abstracts. The aim is also to give a picture of what automatic summarization is and why it is motivated. Three questions are asked: What is automatic summarization and what can it be used for? Is it possible to replace the author-written abstracts with extracts from "Copernic Summarizer"? Is automatic summarization motivated for the different areas of use that are identified in the first question? An automatic summarizer is a program that is intended to summarize text automatically and it can be used for different purposes, for example for summarizing WebPages or scientific articles. To answer the second question an experiment is carried out.