In the dairy production it is necessary to be able to sort cows. Dairy cows are sorted for many different reasons i.e. regrouping into production strings or for treatments i.e. inseminations, pregnancy and health checks, vaccinations or hoof trimmings. One labour saving way of conducting sorting is by using an automatic sort gate.

Developed model for easier animal welfare assessment- with examples from dairy cows in loose housingAnimals in captivity are completely dependent on human care. If captive animals are prevented from exhibiting their natural behavior, they may suffer. Animal welfare inspectors, who insure that the animal welfare legislation is followed, use a checklist to assess the situation in the husbandry. This checklist contains only two levels of assessment, which may result in a lack of detail in the assessment of the husbandry. The objective of this report was to develop a more detailed model that provides an overview of the situation in husbandry.

The aim of this project was to quantify the total sleep time in modern dairy cows during24-hour periods and to investigate whether the total amount of sleep as well as timespent in different sleep stages varies between the dry period, early- and peak lactation.The distribution of sleep time between night and day was also examined. Furthermore,correlations between sleep and lying time, fluctuations in body temperature and heartbeat were included in the aim. Eight dairy cows of the Swedish Red breed were used inthis study, which was carried out between June and September 2010. In order toquantify sleep non-invasive electrophysiological recordings were performed.Simultaneously with collecting sleep data, body position and body temperature werealso recorded. No heart rate data was obtained due to difficulties of maintainingelectrodes for heart beat measurements attached to the skin.

Field balances based on supply and removal of trace elements from the topsoil have been calculatedfor farms specialized in crop, dairy and pig production in Sweden. Today's field balances have beencompared with the field balances of 1990 in order to examine if, and then how, the situation haschanged. Studied trace elements are arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu),mercury (Hg), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn).The balance calculations show that the stores of Cu and Zn are depleted with an average rate of -15% and -6 % over a 100-years period on crop farms when only commercial fertilizers are being used.The concentrations of Hg and Pb tend to increase in the topsoil on crop farms with more than 3 % forHg and with 2 % for Pb in 100 years. There is today balance between supply and removal of the traceelements As, Cd, Cr, Mn and Ni. In the south of Sweden, on crop farms with sugar beets in the croprotation, one can see a decrease in the concentration of Cd in the top soil by -6 % over a period of100 years.

Ethiopia is the country with most livestock per capita on the continent of Africa. There are 34.5 million cattle that are used for drought, meat- and milkproduction and 85% of the population rely on agriculture for their survival in some way. Milk is produced in four main systems, through pastoralism in the lowlands, in mixed crop-livestock systems in the highlands, in and near big cities with only one or two cows, and in intensive farming systems. There are 17 cattle breeds in Ethiopia and some of them are more suitable for milk production than others. Several environmental and economic problems arise from livestock holding in the country, for example overgrazing, low production due to feed shortage, low quality of the avaible feed and non-existing breeding programs.

Fossil fuels are affecting our climate negatively and there is a limited amount of them in the world, which leads to the importance of finding alternative fuels. One alternative is biogas, which is produced though a digestion process of different organic materials in a biogasreactor. Organic substrate that comes from farms has the biggest potential to increase the production of biogas in Sweden. Primarily crops from farms, but also waste products like manure are of great importance.Today there is a calculated theoretical potential for biogasproduction of 14TWh per year, which is around ten times larger than Sweden?s production today.

In most countries, the dairy industry focuses on the volume of milk produced instead of its composition. This results in a high content of water and a lower proportion of fat and protein. A high proportion of water is not desirable when processing the milk into various dairy products like cheese, cream and milk powder. High water content also increases the costs for transport and storage, and also an unnecessary, albeit marginal, strains on the world?s water reservoir.

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.

Dairy farmers using artificial insemination (AI) are dependent on effective oestrus detection. In Sweden, AI is used for a majority of all dairy cows and oestrus synchronisation with hormones is not allowed. There are reports of declining ability to express oestrus with higher levels of milk production. This makes oestrus detection more difficult. Several aids for oestrus detection have been developed, for instance pedometers and mounting detectors.

There is a shortage of locally produced high quality protein concentrates in Europe andSweden. Local production would decrease the dependency on imported soybean and meet thedemand for organically grown feedstuff from ecological dairy farmers. Field bean (Viciafaba), peas (Pisum sativum) and sweet lupin (Lupinus angustifolius) are good alternatives tosoybean, but contain anti-nutritional substances (ANS) that could reduce their use as proteinconcentrates in dairy cow diets. The aim of this literature study was to review which ANSfield bean, peas and sweet lupin contain and whether they affect dairy cows negatively.Trypsin inhibitors and Chymotrypsin inhibitors (TI) were present in all three crops. TI couldbecome inactivated and degraded in the rumen, but due to the high passage speed of thedigesta, most TI left the rumen in an active state.

Schmallenberg virus (SBV) is a novel arthropod-borne orthobunyavirus emerging in Europe in 2011 to 2012. Acute SBV infection causes diarrhoea, fever and reduced milk production in Dairy cattle, but it is mainly the reproductive disorders (abortions, malformed foetuses and stillborn animals) in ruminants that have caused substantial economical losses. The prevalence of the virus outside of Europe is poorly investigated. SBV or SBV-like antibodies were detected in Mozambique in 2013, which raised interest for a similar study in Tanzania. In this study in Tanzania, blood samples were collected from 478 sheep and goats from 39 herds in 15 different villages in three districts, covering areas in the north, south and east of Tanzania. The epidemiology of the virus was investigated by tracing antibodies by ELISA and mapping of the virus by PCR was started.

Fossil fuels are affecting our climate negatively and there is a limited amount of them in the world, which leads to the importance of finding alternative fuels. One alternative is biogas, which is produced though a digestion process of different organic materials in a biogasreactor. Organic substrate that comes from farms has the biggest potential to increase the production of biogas in Sweden. Primarily crops from farms, but also waste products like manure are of great importance.Today there is a calculated theoretical potential for biogasproduction of 14TWh per year, which is around ten times larger than Sweden?s production today.

Subclinical mastitis (SCM) is a well-known problem in the dairy sector, where it causes severe economic losses mainly due to reduced milk production. This is a problem not only in the western world but also in developing countries. Surveys from different developing countries have shown a SCM prevalence of 52.4 ? 88.6 % at cow level and 26.7 ? 63.2 % at quarter-level. To combat mastitis is important to optimize the milk production of the cow.

The Healthcheck is an evaluation of the 2003 years reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). When the Healthcheck of CAP is decided, most likely in the beginning of 2009, there will be a discussion about how CAP will appear in the next budget period 2013. One main question in the Healthcheck is how the farm support will be designed. A suggestion that has arised is if todays addition amount for dairy- and beef production should be transferred to the fundamental farm support. In this exam theses calculations has been done in created typical farms in every Swedish support region for cereals-, dairy- and beef production.

Total mixed rations (TMR) and TMR complemented with individual grain feeding to dairy cows are a growing practice in Sweden. This is because the heard sizes of the farms are increasing. Some farmers and farm advisors in Sweden have great knowledge and practical experience of working with TMR. In the same time there are many advisors that do not know how to handle TMR and farms that have a group based feeding of their animals. In this MSc thesis, the knowledge of farmers that use TMR and advisors with lots of experience of TMR are gathered, with the aim to create a guide book for advisors that are about to start or just have started working with TMR.