The taste of the dairy product is probably the main factor determining consumer?s dairy products choice. Consequently it is of great importance that the product tastes good and as expected every time. Off-flavors in milk can be caused by for example oxidation of the milk fat. Since copper is a prooxidant, a high copper content in the milk can cause oxidation.

Traditionally risk-based measures have been used to assess animal welfare in legislation and certification schemes. With increased knowledge and research, debate today tends to focus on and advocate the use of animal-based measures. However this is not a panacea for welfare and the most sound conclusion should be that assessment of animal welfare needs both. The aim of this thesis is to identify the points that need to be taken into consideration to find the optimal balance in the use of input and outcome measures according to the aim of the assessment and how these should be applied when designing a certification scheme? To answer this, a comparison of the use of resource-based, management-based and animal-based measures in two certification schemes for dairy cow welfare, Freedom Food (UK) and Svenskt Sigill (SWE), was made.

During natural conditions cattle live in large herds, which are divided into subgroups of 10-15 animals. Humans have held cattle for over 9000 years. Today we mostly have cows for milk and meat production during more or less intensive forms. Most of the Swedish cattle have the opportunity to graze during the summer time. This partly arises from the Swedish Animal Protection law which stipulates that cattle must have the option to be outside and graze, also partly because it makes it easier for the farmer.

There is two dairy farms in Sweden with ability to be opened on both long sides, one outside Hjo and the other one, Brandstadholm, north of Sjöbo. When there is no measures and results or not enough literature about natural ventilation and especially on this kind of air inlet, makes my tests very interesting not only on Alnarp, but among other companies. I would like to find out if there is any air movements direct on the cows, how high/low temperature, air humidity, light intensity and noise standard inside the barn. Does Brandstadholm fulfil the rules and regulations when it comes to climate inside the barn? Could this system become the new dairy barn instead of the conventional barns in Sweden? I am going to focus on the animals environment, after all they are the one who is going to spend the most of the time in the barn. I used five electrical loggers distributed inside the barn to measure the temperature and one of the loggers measured the air humidity, every 15th minute. One logger were placed on the outside which measured both temperature and air humidity.

Ethiopia is a developing country situated on Africa?s horn. Ethiopia ranks 173rd on United Nations human development index where the least developed country ranks 186. About 85% of all Ethiopians are employed in agriculture. Onion is one of the basic ingredients in the Ethiopian cuisine and thus an important crop.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep, photoperiod, milk yield and hormones connected to milk formation. Variations of prolactin (PRL) and Insulin-Like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in plasma were measured during two different light programs. The light programs consisted of either 24 hours of light (L24:D0) or four hours of light and 20 hours of darkness (L4:D20). Five cows of the Swedish Red breed were used in a cross-over experiment and each light program consisted of five days. Milk yield was measured at every milking and milk samples were analyzed with regard to fat, lactose and protein.

The fertility of dairy cows is of great importance in order to maintain high production. The decline in fertility of dairy cows the latest decades can have several explanations. The large emphasis on high yielding cows and the negative genetic correlation between milk production and fertility traits could be one of the main factors for impaired fertility. To find heats and inseminate the cow at the right time is crucial to receive high conception rate. Delaval has, in corporation with FOSS, developed Herd Navigator which is a management program that measure four biological parameters in the milk; progesterone, betahydroxybutyrate, lactate dehydrogenase and urea.

Neospora caninum is an intracellular parasite that was first recognized in dogs in 1984. The parasite is now one of the most commonly diagnosed infectious causes of abortion in cattle word wide. N. caninum is transmitted to cattle in two ways. They may be infected from eating food contaminated with oocysts from a definitive host or they may be infected in utero from an infected mother. The infection is transmitted efficiently from cow to her offspring and this can occur for generations.

The aim of this study was to investigate which elements that functioned in a positive way on the natural behaviors of dairy cattle among KRAV certificated and conventional farms. The study was based on reading of earlier research and completed by interviews with farmers, animal health inspectors and consumers. The results showed us that the KRAV certificated farms used only loose housing barns and that the cattle were allowed a pasturetime of five months, or more, in one year. Our interviews with the consumers confirmed that KRAV was a well known trademark. The conventional farms were more flexible in their choice of housing systems, and used both loose housing barns and barns with the cattle tethered.

Cryptosporidium parvum is a protozoan parasite causing diarrhoea in many different animal species including cattle and man. It is an important enteric pathogen in neonatal calves and it is the second most common pathogen found in diarrhoeic calves in Sweden. Subclinically infected adult cattle have, in international studies, been shown to shed a low number of oocysts in faeces and this has been recognised as a potential source of infection for new-born calves. The detection methods used for diagnostic purposes are based on microscopic investigation of faecal smears. These methods have a fairly low sensitivity and samples from subclinically infected cattle have to be concentrated before analysis.

The Swedish dairy sector is facing several challenges the coming years. One big challenge is how they will secure the access of their raw material milk in the future. The number of milk producers has decreased for an extended period of time, but was for a long time partly compensated by an increased productivity among the remaining milk producers. From year 2000 that trend was broken and also the quantity of milk produced started to fall quickly. Milko is a dairy company with members from Dalsland in the south to Jämtland in the north. During the first seven moths 2007, their number of members decreased by almost a fourth, from 1 272 to 974.

Botanically diverse pastures are commonly used in New Zealand to reduce the ruminant environmental impact by reducing the methane production from the rumen digestion. In order to evaluate the effects diverse pasture species have on the milk fatty acid profile seventy-two lactating Friesian-Jersey crossbred dairy cows were used in a randomised block design with two replicates of six treatments. Six different pasture mixtures were fed at a daily allowance of approximately 15 kg DM/cow/day. The mixtures were categorised as either a simple or a diverse pasture. The simple mixtures all contained white clover with the addition of either a standard diploid perennial ryegrass (RG), a diploid high sugar ryegrass (HS) or tall fescue (TF).

Background: As Porter?s diamond (1990) suggested, the business environment highly influences firms? strategies. Today, most of the companies have to decide their strategy depending from a worldwide business environment. Yet, strategy researches and the growing importance of marketing for business success also show that customer dimension must be taken into consideration. On some markets and in certain industries, the offer is much higher than the demand and then, companies need to attract customers.

The aim of this study was to investigate which elements that functioned in a positive way on the natural behaviors of dairy cattle among KRAV certificated and conventional farms. The study was based on reading of earlier research and completed by interviews with farmers, animal health inspectors and consumers. The results showed us that the KRAV certificated farms used only loose housing barns and that the cattle were allowed a pasturetime of five months, or more, in one year. Our interviews with the consumers confirmed that KRAV was a well known trademark. The conventional farms were more flexible in their choice of housing systems, and used both loose housing barns and barns with the cattle tethered.

Farmers are constantly facing changes, and the exposure to risk requires monitoring these changes. Financial risks, institutional risks, market risks and production risks are the different risk categories that the farmers face. Production risks stems from factors the farmer cannot affect or is beyond his control. The crop?s output is the basis for the primary income of agricultural operations, which is why it is important for farmer to manage their production risk. A tool to reduce the consequences of production risks is crop insurance.