Today?s housing system for laying hens has limitations for the hens natural behavior. Despite the current law of prevention of cruelty to animals, this might implicate health problems for the hens. This degree project is aiming to improve the situation for laying hens in cage-systems. The aim with our project is to bring forward a draft of a cage that improves the welfare of laying hens.

To get a good economy on the dairy farms the fertility control of heifers and cows is a crucial factor. It is also important to know which key parameters that should be tracked. In this work well established routines for heat detection have to be applied. When the dairy farmers use technical aid in estrus control it is important not to forget that technical aids can not replace the human eye. Approximately 50 % of all opportunities to inseminate are missed because clear signs of estrus have not been displayed and/or recorded. The cattle fertility has been declining over recent years. During the same time the cow?s proceeds have increased, consequently applying a higher pressure on the cow and the manager.

This study concerns a selection of prehistoric metal objects of animalistic design, published at the internet site of the Swedish Statens Historiska Museum. It seeks to give an impression of the design elements used, and to find likely models for the motifs among live animals. The method used is a qualitative hermenuetic comparative study of objects, where the distinct significant design elements are being identified and interpretated. Several significant design elements are identified, and some are interpretated as representing certain animals. The amalgamation of differentiating design elements in some objects however, leads to interpretations of compound animal motifs, where some motifs are considered ambiguous and some are rendered uninterpretated.

Since feeding fodder crops to dairy cows is a heavy and time-consuming but often disregarded line of work, this study wishes to view the different possibilities that are currently available to decrease the time to feed and apply this knowledge on an existing farm. For this purpose, four farms have been studied due to what feeding systems that are currently used and how long time the feeding required. The occurring systems are either mobile, i.e. a feed mixer operated by a tractor witch feeds the cattle via a drivable fodder table, or a stationery mixer, i.e. an electrically powered mixer which fills an automatic feeder.

The competitiveness and profitability of swedish farm enterprises is frequently discussed in agricultural media. Increased exposure to the surrounding world with greater competitive pressure and considerable price fluctuations in the agricultural markets demand new ways of acting to secure the agricultural sector?s long-term survival and profitability. Structural change and/or diversification leads to increased numbers of stake-holders around the farm enterprise and thereby also the expectations of the farmers ability to lead and coordinate resources. Lean is the name of a management model developed by Toyota, influenced by the lack of resources in Japan during the post WWII period.

This essay constitutes an attempt to expose, with reference to contemporary animal research, the limits of Martin Heidegger?s concept of the being of animality in Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik (1929/30) and to propose some possible ways to think, within the philosophical style of this particular work, the being of those animals that most distinctly transcends Heidegger?s concept. The essay seeks to address the following question: Do the results of contemporary animal research expose ways of being within animality that withdrawal from Heidegger?s concept of the being of animality in general, and if so, how should we think these new ways of animal being? The motivation to ask this question, I argue, are immanent to Heidegger?s thinking in at least three ways: 1) Because of his standpoint that philosophy cannot, in any meaningful way, create an ontological concept of animality without an orientation towards the results of the positive sciences; 2) Because of the unfinished and tentative character of Heidegger?s analysis, a character that is such that it should be seen, according to Heidegger himself, as an essential point of departure for further thinking; 3) Because of Heidegger?s view that the being of the animal are such that it involves the withdrawal of this very being from any originary access, a withdrawal that necessitates an infinite return to the question concerning the being of the animal. The essay wants to be a continuation of lines that are present in Heidegger?s open-ended thought on this theme rather than to be an external critique that approach the text, which is most often the case, as a closed point of view which we are forced to affirm or reject.

In this report female farmers use of technical equipment is investigated. There is little research made on this subject in Sweden, therefore this report can be seen as an explorative study. Research makes it clear that machinery, throughout history and even today, has been seen as a male area. Heavy machines are often associated with the same attributes as masculinity. Force, power, efficiency and control are some examples.

One of our big public health problems in Sweden is that human beings are too inactive in outdoor settings. That is why stress related diseases increase and influence humans both mentally and physical. The physical activity is halved among many children when they start school and the older they become the less they enjoy school. It is also an increasing problem that children and youth in today's society have lack of worthwhile experiences in the nature. The aim of this study was therefore to examine how the experience of outdoor environment had importance for health and learning on upper secondary school pupils.

It´s important when you are about to build a new stable or just increasing your production that you choose the right housing system and that it fits your own farm. In this study I have put together facts about different housing system for fattening bulls in order to get a clearer picture of witch system is the most suitable for my own farm depending on the conditions I have. The background of this work is my own interest for breeding bulls and I will hopefully increase my own production. Due to this I wanted to learn more and increase my knowledge about different housing systems. Through a literature study I have found out the facts about the housing systems I find suitable for housing bulls.

In 2003 the recommended phosphorus allowance for dairy cows in Sweden was lowered approximately 10 %. For a cow at a production level of 35 kg ECM it decreased from 0,40 to 0,36 % of dry matter. To investigate if the decrease has been implemented at farm level, analysis of following minerals; P, Ca, Mg, K, Na, S, Se, Cu, Mn and Zn was performed on the TMR at 20 farms in Sweden in the summer of 2004. The purpose was to describe the actual allowance of different minerals as compared to the new recommendations. One hypothesis was that the decrease in recommended allowance of phosphorus would lead to the need of new mineral feeds on the market.

Interest in alternative energies is high in Sweden today, particularly in the agricultural sector. According to the Swedish lantbruksbarometern (2009), almost all respondents consider the use of some form of alternative energy from the farm. While interest in alternative energies is large, attention to the alternative energy straw has fallen and is almost nowhere mentioned in the literature today. Three years ago, in the Lantbruksbarometern nearly 44% of the farmers would be willing to invest in straw as heating system on the farm. How do the farmers decide to invest in alternative energies? With this information a problem is presented for this paper.

Background: Dementia is an umbrella term for a group of diseases that affects the brain and causes cognitive impairment. Animal-assisted Therapy's goal is to meet patients' physical, psychological and social dimensions within the current health care field. To avoid problems like infections and allergy, robotic animals has been developed. The purpose of robotic animals is to induce relaxation and well-being of persons with cognitive impairment for example.Purpose: To compile scientific articles on which effects care dog and robotic animals have on mental and physical health in patients with dementia. Method: A literature review consisting of nine quantitative research articles.

In this report female farmers use of technical equipment is investigated. There is little research made on this subject in Sweden, therefore this report can be seen as an explorative study. Research makes it clear that machinery, throughout history and even today, has been seen as a male area. Heavy machines are often associated with the same attributes as masculinity. Force, power, efficiency and control are some examples.

The background for my thesis is the fact that with rising electricity and oil prices it becomes interesting to calculate on alternative heating systems. I have chosen to calculate upon my parents? farm, which today heats the dwelling house with wood. This is very time-consuming work, time which could be spent on other work. The main objective for this study is to compare three different heating systems to decide how they differ considering effort and cost. The result from the calculations was that grain-heating system demanded the least amount of work, but the total cost was a little higher compared to chips heating. Chips heating required half as much work as today?s wood heating and had a little lower total costs compared with the corn heating. Which system to choose largely depends on how the own work is valued.

The aim of this study was to compare activity, lying down and getting up behaviour, weight gain and cleanliness in heifers in cubicles versus on deep-litter. The study was conducted from autumn of 2005 until autumn of 2006 in a commercial organic dairy herd with 340 cows. In 2005 the farm rebuilt half of the young stock accommodation from deep-litter pens to cubicles. The experiment used 150 heifers of the breeds Swedish Red, Swedish Holstein and crossbreeds between these, all born on the farm. The animals were divided into three blocks based on breed and within each block they were sorted after increasing age. The youngest heifer in each block was randomly allocated to one of two groups, cubicle or deep-litter pen.