Pneumonia is a common disease in calves. There are several causes behind the disease. The main purpose of this litterary study was to estimate what kind of nursing calves with pneumonia could benefit from, especially the evidence-based nursing recommendations for the sick calves. A further purpose was to gain knowledge of different treatments of sick calves and what kind of practical measurements that are most suitable to use in the preventive work. The results in this study shows that there are only suggestions of nursing, rather than some actual evidence-based actions. The most important nursing actions is to isolate the calves with dyspnea, prevent or treatment of hypothermia, potential dehydration and malnutrition. It is also important to make sure to place the calf on soft and dry bedding.

Difficult calvings and stillbirths are problems in Swedish dairy production that result in large expenses for the farmers and welfare issues concerning the animals. A common opinion is that the live weight of SRB and SLB is increasing, and whether increased weights have caused the increase in calving problems has been discussed. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the relative birth weight (calf/cow) and calving difficulty and stillbirth, respectively. The importance of breed and parity for the relative weight has been investigated, and comparisons with previous studies have been made to evaluate whether the relative weight has changed over the last decades or not. The study was based on 807 calvings, registered during the period 1993-2003 in the experimental dairy herd of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Jälla).

Since long, Sweden has had exceptionally low calf mortality compared to most other countries. The tradition has been to keep calves in individual pens. With increasing number of cows per herd there is now a larger interest in more efficient and economical group systems for housing calves. However it has been noticed that bigger herds have more health problems and higher calf mortality than smaller herds. The early signs of disease are harder to detect when the animals are not fed manually.

Twenty-four calves, which had not grazed previously, were divided into four groups. They were subsequently inoculated orally with either E. alabamensis oocysts, O.ostertagi/C. oncophora larvae, or both. One group remained uninfected and was used as a control.

A variety of food is produced and passes the whole chain by processing, transport and trade and finally it ends up with the consumer. But in many cases, the food is disposed before it is eaten. Some of the produced food does not even pass the whole entire chain before it turns to waste. The question about food waste in debates is a case of access to food for every human beeing. It is question of consumption of the resources, waste management and an issue of environmental impact.

In Sweden, there has been a continuous increase in the volume of housing construction for dairy cattle. Since 2004, the number of new, rebuilt and extended dairy cow houses undergoing preliminary inspection by the authorities has grown. The livestock farms have mostly focused on cow units instead of calf and heifer sheds; which has led to a need for information in this area. The purpose of the study was to improve advisors? knowledge about bovine building construction and function; to enable them to provide more qualified advice to conventional and organic milk producers who sustain larger herds.

In order to optimize calf welfare and health it is important to know the behavior of cattle in free ranging conditions. When the cow is about to give birth to a calf she will leave the heard about 12 hours before. It is then rather obvious that isolating the cow about calving time in a single pen is imitating the cows? natural behavior. To save space and minimize building cost it?s common that the farmers build calving pens for four of five cows especially at larger farms.

Very little is known about the health situation amongs Swedish dairy goats. The population of Swedish dairy goats can only be estimated, and that number is somewhere .

In this study, cortisol in saliva and pain related behaviours in calves were used as markers of distress when comparing two different dehorning methods; scoop or cautery. We also investigated the effect of a non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), meloxikam, on postoperative distress after dehorning with either dehorning scoop or cautery iron. Twenty calves were dehorned on one randomly chosen side by scoop method and on the other side by cautery. Five months later, the effect on horn growth was investigated. Horn production was observed in seven of the calves.

This paper shortly describes the coronavirus family, bovine corona viruses (BCV) properties and two diseases that BCV causes, winter dysentery and calf diarrhoea. The purpose of the study was to compare different diagnostic methods to detect BCV. Different methods are discussed, PCR, ELISA, immunofluorescense and virus isolation. Investigations were made in three different herds with winter dysentery; one dairy cattle farm with about 100 cows of different ages, one testing station for bulls with about 150 bulls and another small dairy cattle farm with 26 cows and 20 replacement heifers and calves. Faeces and nasal swabs were analysed with PCR and ELISA. The result shows that PCR seems to be a reliable method for detecting BCV but that the ELISA test can not be used as a reliable diagnostic method to analyse samples from animals with winter dysentery..

Beef production in Sweden has traditionally been about rearing of Dairy calves to slaughter. With reduced number of dairy cows and accordingly less Dairy calves for slaughter, there has been a need for new forms of beef production in Sweden. In Västerbotten there are good conditions for beef production with a high feeding level of roughage due to favourable climate. The aim of this thesis is to, through interviews with ten farmers with beef production in Västerbotten, study what and with how much they feed their animals and link the results to production level. The thesis begins with a literature review where the general feeding standards and feeding recommendations for beef cows and growing cattle are examined.

Difficult calvings and stillborn calves are costly for the producer and lowering these frequencies can decrease the costs for the dairy operation. Each calving in the herd is registered by the farmer and stored in a central database. The information is used to monitor the level of calving-difficulties and stillborn calves in the herd and nationally. Monitoring of these registrations is important to detect possible changes. Breeding-value prediction for calving traits is based on the calving information in the database.

Swedish agriculture stands in front of big changes the whole time. As a milking producer you have to adapt and develop the company to these changes and find the best solution. This potential is easy to find if you compare your company with other similar companies. Labour cost is the biggest cost in milking production after the cost for food. Today it is rather easy to measure how many hours per cow different system of cow houses needs, but we do not know so much about how many hours it takes to breed a calf. To learn more about the labour time with the calves during the first time after the calf was born, I made time studies on five different farms with calf hutches, automatic milk system, large calf boxes, and smaller calf boxes with teat buckets.

A cattle producer that buys calves that are younger than six months to the herd should have a starter stable to prevent infection spreading in the herd. According to the Swedish animal welfare regulation there has to be a starter stable if more than 50 calves that are younger than four months are bought in yearly to the herd. The aim of the study was to improve the knowledge about bovine buildings and management of starter stables to obtain optimal weight gain and health of the calves. The hypothesis 1) The younger the calves are when purchased, the higher the calf mortality and 2) Purchasing calves from a high number of herds involves a higher risk of calf health problems and calf mortality were tested in the study. The objective of the study was to give advices by way of presenting ideal solutions of how a starter stable should be constructed and managed. A field study was done during June to September 2008 to collect knowledge and experience from existing starter stables.

Drinking water from drilled wells has a high content of iron and other minerals in many places in Sweden. Questions about the association between the quality of drinking water and the health of dairy cows are regulary asked both by advisers and dairy farmers. There are so far not many studies published about the relevance for high iron content in water and dairy cow health and production. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate if there is a connection between the iron content in water and the health of dairy cows. Initially a literature study was made about iron and it´s function in ruminants.