On December 1th 2009 the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, and through Article 13, the recognition of animals as sentient being was given a more visible part in the very core of EU law. This was an effect of a political decision to commit to the issue, partly because of the will to further harmonize the EU market, but also due to increased societal concern for the wellbeing of animals. Over the last decades, ethical awareness is growing in many countries, one reason being new scientific discovery. This influences legislators and policy makers to take proper action, and in this way, ethics and science often work together as the very basis for the development of new legislation and policies. There is yet to be seen what the actual consequences of Article 13 will be, since the legal obligation remains the same and there are still some reservations in it.

Lökarterna som tas upp i denna litteraturstudie är främst gul lök (Allium cepa) och vitlök (Allium sativum), men också dagglök (Allium flavum). Syftet är att ta reda på hur farliga ämnena i lök är, om de negativa effekterna överväger de positiva, hur djurslagsskillnader ter sig, om det spelar någon roll hur löken är tillagad och vilka symptomen på lökförgiftning är. Eftersom det är många faktorer som avgör om lök får negativa eller positiva effekter är det svårt att säga om lökens effekter är endast positiva/negativa. Effekterna kan vara både positiva och negativa, det beror till största del på dosen men även djurslag och lökart spelar roll. Positiva effekter av lök har utvärderats i studier. Fenolerna har visats vara antioxiderande, antiinflammatoriska, antibakteriella och antifungurala, de flesta av dessa studier gjordes in vitro. Lökinducerad hemolys drabbar de flesta djurslag som får i sig för mycket lök men det finns de som är mer eller mindre känsliga.

Today cultivation of cereal in Sweden has high costs for establishment in relation to the rest of the world, and if this cultivation will be able to continue, the farmers have to control their costs. It is important to see all costs, not the maximum harvest achieved, but the net result. All farmers have different conditions with respect to soil, direction of the farm and were the farm is located geographically. With the right knowledge and ambitions, we think most farmers could change to reduced tillage. In this paper we have tried to find out if reduced tillage is an alternative for farmers.

The purpose of this work was that with the help of a literature review have a single document with information on how the various species: brown bear (Ursus arctos), lynx (Lynx lynx) and the wolf (Canis lupus) living in the wild. The aim was also to show which stereotypic behaviours these different species have in zoos and the enrichments that is already being used and to make suggestions and recommendations on enrichment based on animal behaviour ecology. In zoos, some species thrive well while others have propositions to propagating problems, poor health and stereotypic behaviors. The brown bear, lynx and wolf, live both in the wild and in zoos in Sweden. As these animals have different ways of living in the wild, it is important to accommodate to each species, the way they are kept in zoos in accordance with their behavioural ecology.Brown bears are omnivorous and solitary living species with large energy needs so that they spend most of their day to actively feeding but also rest.

Environmental chemicals are transported to the Arctic through the air and oceans, once within the Arctic they spread through rivers, lakes and other watercourses. Polar bears and sledge dogs in-gest high concentrations of environmental chemicals since many of the chemicals are fat-soluble and their diet mainly consists of marine mammals. The aim of this study is to describe how environmental chemicals spread in nature, how they reach the polar bears, and finally how they affect the animals reproduction, with reproductive hormones and genitals in focus. The animals are exposed to a cocktail effect which complicates the assessment of the chemicals impact on the reproduction. Studies show that the genitals can decrease in size or become malformed, sexual maturation can be affected and the reproductive hormones can be disturbed.

There have been significant changes in the agricultural sector during the past 20 years (Jordbruksverket, 2008). The development of today is towards deregulation and adaption to global market conditions. As farmers try to adapt to the changed and more competitive market conditions investments are often necessary (LRF Konsult et al, 2012). Loans to agriculture and forestry businesses have increased to record levels and debt has doubled over the past years. The financial turbulence of the past years has contributed to an increase of the meaningfulness and willingness of the banks to be able to understand and handle risks associated with agriculture and forestry (Breiding, 2010).

 AbstractThis study is performed by studying seven livestock businesses in the agricultural sector. The focus of the essay has been put on the structures that limit and enable the lives of the farmers in this study. One of these major structures that affect everyday life is the gender structure and to this day the housewife role exists where the women are responsible for the home, family and domestic pets while the men are responsible for the production, machinery and the heavier tasks on the farm. This is grounded in the history and the development that agriculture has gone through, but also in the strong patriarchal power structure that exists in this industry. In this essay I also show how the life form analysis of Liselotte Jakobsen and the independent life form can not be fully applied to the farmer as he is not completely independent in his work.

Human-animal interaction is suggested to be a main feature within livestock production. The quality of handling, for instance, appears to be greatly depending on the attitudes and behaviour of the stock people. Various studies have been conducted on relationships between human and animals, but few have looked upon differences in human-animal interaction and attitudes between countries. Two countries often discussed in livestock production are The Netherlands and Sweden. It would be of interest to compare these two countries to find out whether (assumed) differences are reflected in the attitudes between animal handlers.

Biogas is an expanding sector within the broad field of agriculture and animal production. Small-scale biogas offers local combined power and heating production and the substrate is transformed into high-quality biological fertilizer. This bachelor thesis focuses on a pig farm in south-western Sweden, where biogas is produced from pig manure, evaluates and suggests ways of optimizing the process and investigates whether investing in an upgrading plant would be a feasible and more cost-efficient option. The results show that the biogas plant is working well, although the production differs from the original plans. This shows in turn that planning and examining the basic conditions before making the investment is of great importance, as well as monitoring and keeping detailed statistics of the running process.

During the period 1905 to 1940 it was possible to get a loan from the state to buy land and build a small farm or a house in rural areas. This loan act and its effects have been studied earlier in different ways, but never as a total study for a geographic region. The region Malmöhus Län has been chosen. The purpose of this paper is to study in which parts of the area loans were taken and who sold the land that was used for these purposes. Earlier studies have looked at a larger geographical area for some specific years.

Infection with intestinal parasites can in many cases be the reason for decreased performance or production. The gastro-intestinal nematode, Ostertagia ostertagi, and the lungworm, Dictyocaulus viviparus, are the most pathogenic nematodes of cattle and severe infection can lead to death. They have both a direct lifecycle and on the pasture the parasites spread as freeliving worms. The parasites are mainly a problem for the first season grazers. They have not developed immunity against the parasites and are therefor more sensitive to parasite infections.

The aim of this study was to examine if the predictions of the herbage quality in the software Grazemore Decision Support System (DSS) gives a reliable ground for milk production in the north of Scandinavia. Pasture samples from one research farm (Umeå) and one organic farm (Nordingrå) was analysed on crude protein and organic matter digestibility. The results were statistically compared to the predicted values. Measured and predicted herbage mass was compared and a control if the predictions of milk production improved if the predicted input were replaced by the values from the analysis, was made. The concentration of crude protein was underestimated by the model on both farms and the relationship between actual and predicted values was poor. Mean Prediction Error (MPE) was 24% and 31% respectively.

Lawsonia intracellularis is an important pathogen in the intestine, causing diarrhea and retarded (or poor) growth in pigs. Diagnostics is based on sampling of small amounts of faeces. Several publicated scientific papers mention the use of faecal swabs as sampling material for diagnosis in experiments and in prevalence studies. Therefore the need of an evaluation of this sampling technique is urgent since, to our knowledge, this has not previously been done. Here reported work compare the use of rectal swabs for feacal sampling, with sampling and analysis of 0.1-0.2 gram of faeces. The studie included twelve herds with a case history of earlier or ongoing problems with diarrhoea where Lawsonia intracellularis could be suspected as the causative agent. A total of 120 growing pigs where examined.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is one of the major neurodegenerative diseases, causing an ascending paralysis that usually kills the patient within a few years from disease onset. The motor neurons show aggregates of proteins which in approximately 20 % of cases of the familial form contain mutated SOD1 protein. Trehalose is a disaccharide which has been shown to reduce protein aggregation and increase viability in cell models and alleviate symptoms in animal models of several neurodegenerative diseases associated with protein aggregation. When given orally to the SOD1G93A mouse model of ALS, trehalose failed to slow down the disease progression, which has led to questions about the uptake and distribution of the molecule in this mouse strain. The aim of this study was to investigate whether significant levels of trehalose reach the central nervous system of the SOD1G93A mouse after oral administration. This was performed by a trehalose assay of the brain of trehalose treated animals. A glucose assay was optimised for use in small samples of brain lysate after the digestion of trehalose into glucose by trehalase, and the difference in glucose concentration before and after digestion represented the trehalose level.

The objective of this study was to study the agreement between two methods of indirect bloodpressure measurement in dogs and cats and to establish the within-method variation for the methods. The utility and practicality in the clinical setting were also evaluated for the both methods. The techniques evaluated were the oscillometric method and the Doppler ultrasonographic method. Thirtytwo dogs and 26 cats were used in the study and seven dogs and five cats out of these animals had diseases that may effect the bloodpressure. Bloodpressure was measured in both anesthetized and in conscious animals.