The aim of this literature review was to investigate whether the modern dairy cow has the time she needs to lie down and to sleep and what deprivation of these behaviors could lead to. Current research seems to agree on the fact that sleep is essential but there is no uniform explanation of the function of sleep, even though there are many theories. It is known that sleep has an important impact on the immune system and that sleep is increased in case of an infection. Sleep deprivation causes many negative effects including reduced function off the immune defense, increased metabolic activity, malnutrition and increased heart rate. It has also been found that deprivation of sleep could cause increased mortality.

Research where personality in animals is studied is becoming more and more common. In this area there are different concepts like behavioural syndrome and animal personality and they usually talk about consistency in behaviour over time and situations. This consistent individual behaviour can be used as an indicator of how individuals can handle and adjust to new situations in the environment. Because of this, personality studies in animals are very important in animal welfare. In this study personality in dairy cattle in lose housing were studied.

When facing the fact that high yielding Dairy cows has an increasing energy requirements, the practice of adding lipid supplements such as concentrates rich in palm oil and/or palm oil industry by-products become more common. Palm oil containing high levels of C16:0 causes high levels of free fatty acids (FFA) which are linked to larger milk fat globules (MFG) which affect the reaction of lipolysis resulting in rancid flavour and processing problems. Instead of using palm oil, rapeseed oil rich in C18:1 C18:2 can be used. In order to evaluate the effect of added C18:0 and C16:0 on milk lipolysis, 30 Swedish Red lactating Dairy cows including 15 multiparous (MP) and 15 primiparous (PP) cows were randomly divided in three groups resulting in 3 10 cow-groups (5 PP and 5 MP cows per group) and fed one out of three concentrate mixtures: control (C), a standard concentrate mixture with no fat added; palmitate (P) as C plus the addition of palmitate methyl ester (10 % in DM basis); and stearate (St) as C plus the addition of stearate methyl ester (10 % in DM basis). Milk yield was registered, and milk samples were collected and analysed for milk composition, FFA content and size of MFG.

Escherichia (E) coli is one of the most common udder pathogens associated with acute clinical mastitis in Swedish Dairy cows. The aim of this study is to review some of the existing literature on E coli mastitis from a Swedish perspective. The bacteria, its most important characteristics, and diagnostics under field conditions is covered, as well as what happens during infection, how E coli affects the cow and which consequences this have. Clinical symptoms associated with E coli mastitis are described and information on when these cases of mastitis usually occurs is given. Risk factors in the cow?s enviroment are described as well as the importance of the cow?s immune defence.

Oestrus in dairy cattle has changed over the last decades; the intensity of oestrus has declined and the duration decreased. Several studies have shown that not all Dairy cows stand to be mounted, and that oestrus expression in many cases may be characterized by other behaviours. The aim of this study was to investigate oestrus behaviour in a herd of todays? high producing dairy cattle. The study was carried out at Jälla naturbruksgymnasium in Uppsala during one week in January 2011.

Mastitis is the most common disease of Dairy cows. Mastitis can be painful for the dairy cow and causes economical losses for the farmer. These losses are due to decreased milk production, more working hours for the farmer, treatment costs and possible costs due to culling of the cow. The udder inflammation, mastitis, is often caused by bacteria infection. One of the most common bacteria found to cause mastitis in Sweden is Staphylococcus aureus (S.

Sleep is a vital part of life. Even so a lot of the mechanics regarding sleep is unknown. The dairy cattle of today live a stressful life, as their high milk yields forces them to eat large amounts of feed and spend a great portion of the day ruminating. Do they have time to get enough sleep? Which factors affecting the need of sleep in dairy cattle are largely un-known.

Milk yield levels in Dairy cows are influenced by many factors such as nutrition, breed, health status, management and environment. This study was conducted among small scale farmers in Zambia, where the climate can be dry for up to six months per year and cause a lack of green pasture for livestock and on-farm produced feed. The purpose of this study was to identify management factors that can influence milk yield at small scale dairy farms in Zambia, and present advice that could improve productivity, without the need of expensive investments. The study included semi-structured questionnaires presented to the farmers (n=29) including questions about cattle management and milk production. Testing of somatic cell count (SCC) with DCC (DeLaval Cell Counter) from herd milk samples (n=56) and observation of housing and animal body condition on-farm was also made.

The ability of Dairy cows to survive and the economic importance of this have been in-creasing in dairy cattle breeding lately. Increased longevity contribute to an increased pro-portion of cows that produce milk in more productive lactations and reduces the replace-ment costs together with a good health and fertility. Unfortunately it is often argued that longevity has been decreasing due to a strong selection for production traits in dairy cattle.The aims of this study were to find correlations between different longevity evaluations and between different estimates on longevity and other traits in the Nordic Total Merit (NTM) breeding value. The aim was also to compare different traits for cows of two differ-ent longevity groups.The data were Predicted Breeding Values (PBV) from Nordic HOL and SR bulls and records from Holstein (HOL) and Swedish Red (SR) cows estimated by the Swedish Dairy Association.The three Swedish longevity indexes were very highly correlated (>0.89) and the corre-lations between the Swedish official longevity index and the five Nordic Cattle Genetic Evaluation (NAV) longevity indexes varied between 0.73-0.83.In the sire evaluation part, the traits most negatively correlated with longevity for HOL were dairyness, protein and fat index. In SR, milk, protein, and fat index only had slightly positive correlations with longevity.

The Dairy business is changing a lot because of some scandals in the agricultural area for example the BSE crises in Great Britain. Because of the scandals the food industry and the farm association have created a certifying system; IP-Sigill Swedish standard system. We contacted Skånemejerier as they have been successful in the certifying area. They asked us if we wanted to do a study in the certifying area of dairy farmers. At Skånemejerier they gave us most of the literature in the area about certifying. The result of the study, is that we have taken up the most common remark?s. The most frequent remark is journal over routines in management of Dairy cows on daily basis. Another remark of the study is that the frequency of the remarks decreases with greater production..

Sustainable beef and milk consumption. The consumption of beef and dairy products in Sweden is high. A lot of greenhouse gases are emitted from the production of these products. The production of beef in Sweden has decreased but the import has increased. The number of Dairy cows has decreased while beef-production with suckler-cows has increased in Sweden.

Good feeding practices are a basic aspect of good calf health. During the calf's first few months the calf is fed with purchased milk replacer or raw milk straight from the cow. On all farms, it will be a surplus of milk that may not be delivered to the dairy for various reasons. Milk that may not be supplied to the dairy includes colostrum and milk with unnormal properties, including milk from cows suffering from mastitis. This study investigated the possibility of improving the milk by pasteurization in order to secure its use as feed for calves and thereby obtain an improved calf health.

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.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of an infusion of hypertonic saline solution (HSS) in combination with an oral waterload on cows suffering from rightsided displacement of the abomasum (RDA). Six Dairy cows were treated with 7,2% HSS in a dosis of 5 ml per kg bodyweight. They also received an oral waterload of approximately 15 liters. To monitor changes in fluid-, acid-base- and electrolyte-balance, bloodsamples were collected during the next 24 hours. During this period, the cows also underwent surgery to empty and correct the position of the abomasum.

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.