Cows affected by mastitis caused by Klebsiella (K.) pneumoniae often become seriously ill. In some cases herdproblems may occur. Contaminated bedding material is considered to be one of the most common risk factors for klebsiella mastitis. In a recently performed study in USA it was found, however, that more than 80 % of healthy, lactating dairy cows excreted K. pneumoniae in faeces.

The animal welfare act in Sweden states that dairy cows need to have at least a dim light present at night, but there are no recommendations for what intensity the light should have. It is unknown how cows perceive and react to low light intensities and earlier studies on this topic are limited. Red light as night light has also been suggested, based on the cows? inability to perceive red light. This have however been questioned. The aim with this study was to investigate how four different light intensities affect dairy cows behavior.

To reconstruct a building is a long-term investment for farmers and it is important that people with different qualifications are involved at an early stage for making the system adapted to the animals as well the animal keeper. Therefore, ethologists who can contribute with their expertise are needed to design the system and get it to function well for the animals.A Swedish farmer who planned to rebuild her stall for tied dairy cattle to a loose-housing system for recruitment heifers for milk production asked me as an ethologist to find a system which can be fit to her existing tie-stall barn for 30 dairy cows, considering the animal needs in terms of movement, social interactions and play behaviors, and to theoretically compare the system with other systems with respect to the behaviors mentioned.The theoretical comparison between different systems was made through a scientific literature review.In agreement with the animal keeper I set out to fit a system with feeding cubicles, a system with cubicles and a system with deep straw bedding to the barn. After measurements were taken and preliminary drawings were outlined it was found that only the feeding cubicle system was possible to fit to the barn.The space provided will limit the animals to perform some playing behaviors. To decrease aggressive interactions between animals even thought a limiting area it is possible to provide partitions between resources animals compete around to prevent that more than one animal can get success to the resource at a particular place at one time. To increase the animal movement in the system the water trays were moved to the outer wall instead of kept in contact with the stalls.Although this report provides guidelines for rebuilding, other competences regarding building construction and a pre-test of the suggested building solution according to Swedish legislation are needed before the rebuilding can start.The results are directed mainly to the owner of the barn, but the literature review can be used by other cattle farmers and might bring increased understanding of the possible effects of different building solution on the animals..

Gotland is famous around the world for its unique nature. The agriculture here has always been an important source of income and part of the identity of the island. But today the profession has low status and hard to survive. How can the interest for farming be increased?Gotlandsgården is an investigation about how the agriculture could develop.

Background: Mastitis in dairy cattle is a common ailment worldwide. A cause of mastitis can be bacteria such as Escherichia coli. Mastitis is not a deadly ailment and sometimes the dairy cows show no symptoms but if certain virulence genes are present in the bacteria that cause the mastitis, the bacteria can be transmitted to humans and cause severe diseases. The potential presence of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) in particular would be a major concern for human health.Aim: The aim for this study was to analyze the presence of virulence genes known to be present in E.coli strains isolated from dairy cows with mastitis in Sweden.Method: A Qiagen BIO ROBOT EZ1 was used to purify DNA from 90 bacterial cultures. A panel of virulence genes were amplified and biotinylated from the purified DNA by PCR and an E.coli based DNA microarray was used to detect presumed virulence genes in E.coli.Result: There were no samples that had all the genes traditionally used to classify E.coli as EHEC or potential EHEC.

Water is an essential factor for both people and animals, and access to water is therefore of great importance. The water access also largely determines the availability of food for people and feed for animals. The aim of this study was to survey the affect of water access on milk production from dairy animals. The study included nineteen farm visits that were made in the Nyando district in Kenya between February and Mars 2011. Farm visits included interviews with questions about for example number of dairy animals, milk production, water access, feed and water routines.

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.

Milkability or ease of milking, has higher importance today for Swedish dairy cattle producers after the introduction of milking parlours and automatic milking systems. Milkability is the cow?s ability to quickly milk out and be completely milked. There are several measures of milkability available. Today the farmer measures the traits subjectively in relation to the conformation scoring of the cow 30-270 days after her first calving.

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.

Today´s debate in farming is being focused on tourism, outdoor life and hobbies in the rural areas. This is of interest also for the general public as a way of counteracting the depopulation of the rural areas. Within the last years, the farming has become more technically advanced and hence efficient. This has led to increased production volumes and wider selection of products with lower margins for the farmer as a consequence. When the profitability is reduced, the farmer is faced with the choice of either increasing efficiency or diversification of the business.

Gotland is famous around the world for its unique nature. The agriculture here has always been an important source of income and part of the identity of the island. But today the profession has low status and hard to survive. How can the interest for farming be increased?Gotlandsgården is an investigation about how the agriculture could develop.

Dairy farms have during a long time been under pressure and this situation was aggravated during the spring and summer of 2009, when profitability declined to historically low levels. Lower milk price and relatively high input prices have caused Swedish dairy farms great liquidity concerns and profitability problems. For a long time, Denmark has been identified as a leading country for the agrarian development with a leading structural rationalization and willingness to grow. In 2009, it was shown that the Danish agriculture, which is generally more leveraged, has difficulties in maintaining profitability and when market price of land started to fall, the proportion of technically insolvent agricultural enterprises rose dramatically. In light of this prevailing situation, this study highlights differences between Denmark and Sweden with the hope to learn from each other.

The feed is a major cost in the dairy production and there is a constant interest in findingalternative cost-effective feedstuffs. Competitive dairy producers have to seek ways todecrease their production costs and the pursuit of cost-effective feed rations contributesto lower costs of production. An interesting group of protein concentrates are rapeseedproducts like ExPro (heat treated rapeseed) which have during the autumn 2008 andspring 2009 been very favourable compared to other protein feeds.This study focuses on the feedstuff products ExPro and Raps-Drank 60/40 (rapeseeddistillersgrain). The potential use of ExPro in dairy cow feed rations are also explored.ExPro is a well known feedstuff but Raps-Drank 60/40 is a relatively new product andnot known for many farmers.A field study on the use of rapeseed products was made on a limited number of dairyfarms. The main purpose was to study the management of the feedstuffs on the farms.The Farms were selected in cooperation with two local extension services.

The economic conditions for Swedish Dairy farmers are constantly changing. The numbers of producers are declining and the economic conditions for dairy production are weakening debilitating. To improve the economic situation for a farm a hired contractor is a possible solution since previous studies show that machinery cooperation may be beneficial for the farmers. The aim of this study is to examine the possibility for farmers to cut costs by hiring a contractor for harvesting silage. A comparison between using own machinery and hire a contractor is the starting point of this study. Another aim is to discuss the farmer?s decision process when achieving today?s situation and to determinate what factors affect their decisions. The study is based on cases selected from four farms that today have chosen not to or only to some extent, hire a contractor for harvesting silage.

Several bulls in Sweden are culled because of lameness. Studies of beef bulls have shown that osteochondrosis is an important underlying cause of hind limb problems (Persson, 2003; Dutra, 1998). Osteochondrosis in horses, dogs, swine, poultry and man are well documentated in the literature, but there are few studies in cattle. The prevalence of osteochondrosis in dairy bulls in Sweden is unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence and localisation of osteochondrosis in the hindlimbs of dairy bulls. This study consists of 48 one-year-old bulls divided into four groups related to which farm they came from.