Swedish beef production has during the past year decreased while the consumption has increased. It´s imported beef that takes market shares. The purpose with this degreeproject is to investigate if the restaurants in Sweden are using imported or Swedish beef and the reason for their choice. The purpose is to find out if there is something the Swedish beef producers can change to increase Swedish beef in restaurants. My expectation is that the demand for Swedish beef will increase in restaurant and later even among consumers. I have interviewed ten chiefs in different restaurants and asked them the following questions: Is it the price, quality or something else that influences your choise? Does it matter to their customers if they serve Swedish or imported beef? How is the marketing of Swedish beef? It appeared both Swedish and imported beef on the restaurants.

Automatic milking systems (AMS) are part of a growing trend in Sweden and the number of milk-producing farms is decreasing rapidly. One main reason for the AMS is its ability to facilitate work for the farmer. The effects of introduction prior to calving have not been documented earlier and farmers are not in agreement, however they seldom see a problem with the introduction. The aim of this report is to find differences between two groups of heifers, where one group is trained i.e. introduced to the AMS before calving and the other group is introduced after calving.

Higher demands of competitiveness and efficiency have led to increasing sizes of farms, with more land, more capital and more comprehensive logistics. The aim is to gain benefits of scale economies that reduce the production cost per unit. However, a greater extent of the business exposes the farm of increased risk where small deviations rapidly can erase the benefits. A modern dairy farm thus put high demands on the farmer?s ability to coordinate, plan and manage the forage production through the whole process until storage to obtain silage of the desired quality and quantity at the right price. The objective of this study was to design a simple model, i.e.

Earlier studies of musculoskeletal problems with milkers working in milking parlour operators have shown that it is a physically demanding occupation. The extremities that are most exposed are neck, shoulders, hands and wrists. Those systems that have been studied in present cases are fishbone and some tandem barns. There have been changes in the working environment during the past ten years. The mechanisation has been developed for the better with automatically removers of the milking units and vertically adjustable floors in almost every daily milking barn. In other hand the milk production are more industrialised and more related to stress today.

Approximately 20% of the milk within the udder of a cow is stored in the cistern and immediately available for milk removal, while activation of the milk ejection reflex is required for removing the remaining milk stored in the alveolar compartment. The aim of this literature review is to describe, evaluate and consider implications of the three different suckling activities that the calf displays during a suckling bout. In terms of milking, these phases are represented by pre-stimulation, stimulation during milking and post-stimulation. Pre-stimulation is commonly performed in order to induce the milk ejection reflex, whereby the hormone oxytocin is released and the alveoli in the secretory tissue are contracted. Time requirements regarding pre-stimulation must be considered in relation to lactation stage and milking interval.

Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus (BRSV) is a common cause of respiratory disease among young cattle. The virus causes severe losses; the herd mortality rate can sometimes be as high as 20 %. In this study the avidity (i.e the antigen binding force) of BRSV specific antibodies was measured to see if there was a difference between antibodies produced during an acute phase of infection and antibodies produced by earlier infected animals. A commercially available ELISA-testkit against BRSV-specific antibodies was used and an incubation step with 6M urea was added. The effect of the urea is that it breaks the weak bonds between antibodies and antigen while the stronger bonds remain intact. Four different groups of animals were included in this study; seven calves that were naturally infected, three acutely infected calves with known time of infection, five cows that were seropositive during several years and four experimentally infected calves that had been a part of a vaccine trial. The results of this study showed that antibodies produced during the acute phase of an infection had a low avidity and that the avidity increased with time after infection.

Ultrasound is a diagnostic aid often overlooked by the veterinary practicioner who works with farm-animals. However, it?s use increases, particulary for breeders where ultrasound has long been used to evaluate ovaries and to diagnose pregnancy or disturbances in reproduction. There is much knowledge in how to examine ovaries and uterus by transrectal ultrasound, but when it comes to doing ultrasound of other organs in the abdomen the knowledge is more limited. Cows are very large animals, so it is not possible to examine everything inside the abdomen with ultrasound, simply because the ultrasound beam has a limited penetration. There is also lots of gas inside the gastro-intestinal tract of a cow, mainly in the large intestine and the rumen, and that makes it impossible to examine the organs behind the gas since the ultrasound waves are reflected when reaching the soft tissue-gas interface.

In modern dairy production, the newborn calf generally is separated from its mother and put in a single pen for some time before it is introduced to group housing. Group housing is becoming more and more common because it saves the farmer a lot of valuable time. Even thought group housing has a lot of benefits it is often associated with a higher morbidity and mortality in the young calves. Therefore, knowing the optimal way to use the group pen lies in many farmers? interests and the importance of different factors such as the optimal age of introduction is important to evaluate. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of age at introduction to group housing on the health of the calves in the group pen.

Knowledge about feed racks for feeding forages to horses is lacking. Racks for sheep and cows are sometimes used for horses. Feeding roughage on the ground, or feeding silage bales with the plastic and net still on, can bring on a lot of different problems. The opportunity to control the hygienic quality is small and feed losses can be high. The purpose of this experiment was to investigate how the eating behaviour and consumption of horses were influenced by feeding racks of different constructions. Feed losses and changes in chemical composition of the forage were also studied.

The purpose with this thesis was to form an opinion of how the animal welfare in Sweden is experienced by both farmers and animal inspectors. A great part of this work consists of an inquiry concerning the south and the middle of Sweden. We sent the inquiries to milk and meat producers and to animal inspectors. The response was high, which indicates that this is a subject that affects many people. Our literature study is mostly made on the library bases LIBRIS and LUKAS. The facts we found there were directed towards animal experimentation and furred animal breeding. In order to compare with earlier results we used investigations that had been made by Riksrevisionen 2003. There is a difference in opinions about the new Swedish animal welfare agency that started first of January 2004.

Med dagens växande besättningar är det svårare att upptäcka brunst hos mjölkkor genom visuell observation. Detta leder till ekonomiska förluster, minskat genetiskt framsteg, högre inkalvningsålder och längre kalvningsintervall. För att underlätta brunstregistrering i besättningarna finns olika automatiska registreringar som kan upptäcka fysiologiska eller beteendemässiga förändringar som framträder hos kon vid brunst. Denna litteraturstudie sammanställer tre olika principer för brunstdetektering; visuell brunstdetektering, stegräknare och bestigningsdetektor, som kan vara antingen elektronisk eller manuell. Resultatet visar att stegräknare är den metod som upptäcker flest brunstperioder medan visuell observation ger minst felaktigt detekterade brunstperioder.

The probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus reuteri DSM17938 was evaluated as a starter culture in cheese production, with the intention to produce a new interesting product within the functional food market. Growth and acidification rate in milk subjected to different heat treatments, as well as supplementation with growth promoting factors or support cultures was measured during controlled fermentations. The results showed that the weak proteolytic activity of L. reuteri could be compensated for by supplementation with 1% casamino acids or 5% MRS broth. Furthermore, a decrease in growth and acidification rate could be seen when using yoghurt culture or Lactobacillus delbrueckii as adjunct cultures.

Many pedigree dogs are suffering from inherited diseases or personality disorders caused by selective breeding. The Swedish lapphund is a breed that has been suffering from some loss of genetic variation due to the heavy use of only a few males. Concerns have arisen and crossbreeding has been discussed as a way to manage gene loss. Four breeds has been taken into consideration for this purpose; schipperke, finish lapphund, Norwegian buhund and Norwegian elkhound, black. These breeds has been tested theoretical by a comparison of mentality and health.

In this degree project I have tried to analyse thoughts about what?s important in the future work among students that are leaving the Land and animal husbandry programme. I have also asked employer to understand to what degree they knew about the coming employees thoughts about the future. The method was a questionnaire which was sent to 14 schools of Land and animal husbandry. The questionnaire was answered by students in their last schoolterm. I got 167 answers from students. 11 employer also were asked about their ideas conserning the students thoughts about their coming work. The questions where about wages, working environement, responsibility and further education. The questions were multiple choise.

Protecting the environment has with time grown to take a more central role in the society. Agriculture plays an important role in the society since this sector produces our food. More thorough research on how agriculture affects the environment is therefore motivated. This research can be used to improve the agricultural practice from an environmental point of view. This is something that both the farmers and the consumers can profit from. This study aims to form the basis for creating environmental indicators for use of nitrogen and energy on dairy farms. Twenty-three farmers in western Sweden have been interviewed about their farms, both organic and conventional. They produce milk with different intensity, defined as the amount of milk delivered (sold) per hectare of arable land.