At present indoor tethering of dairy cows is still common but is not predicted to take part of modern dairy production. When conducting scientific studies of cattle it is generally necessary to tether the animals to maintain a controlled environment. Studies confirm that tethering and confinements of cattle severely affects the development of stereotypies in cattle. The feeding regime and feeding level have an immense affect on the stereotypi level in cattle. The aim of this experiment was to study dairy heifers that had never been tethered before the start of the experiment, to evaluate the affect of tethering on the development of stereotypies and the impact of the feeding regime on the behavior of the animals. Sixteen dairy heifers were tethered in a tie stall and divided in two groups with different treatments. Heifers in treatment E were fed restrictedly with silage and treatment EH was fed with the same amount of silage but also straw ad libitum.

The behaviour of consumers has changed rapidly during the last decade, and a healthy lifestyle and an environmental mindset has become part of everyday life. This is also something that has become prominent in the supermarkets, where the organic products are increasingly winning shelf space. Several consumer behaviour studies have shown that the attitudes towards organic products and labels are predominantly positive. According to traditional marketing theory, these kind of attitudes should affect consumers? purchase intentions in a positive manner, as well as the actual purchase behavior.

Because of the increasing trends in energy consumption and increased environmental awareness, greater focus has been placed on improvement and development of renewable energy sources. An already proven and accepted method is biogas production from anaerobic digestion at municipal wastewater treatment plants.In the waste water treatment process solid material and dissolved pollutants are separated from the water, forming a sludge. The sludge is separated from the process and stabilized during anaerobic digestion or aerobic aeration. Most often, mesophilic anaerobic digestion is used. Because of degradation by microorganisms, biogas with a high content of methane is formed during the digestion.

Today, there are no regulations saying that cows must have access to some kind of shelter at pasture during the summer. In more tropical countries, it is well-known that dairy cows might suffer from heat stress when exposed to sun and high temperatures. The well-being of the cows is thereby reduced and the production may also decrease. In Sweden, no research has been done in the area and therefore it is now a clear need of improved knowledge.The purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of shade for dairy cows in Sweden. The behaviour of 30 cows was examined to see any differences between cows with access to shade and cows without access to shade.

The last years? financial situation has contributed to an increased willingness from the banks to handle risks. The most important risk to cope with is a risk that is related to a customer?s ability to repay loans. Forecasts indicate that in the future, Swedish farmers will be facing profitability challenges, which points to a need to reconsider the banks procedures considering risk management in credit granting for agricultural businesses.Today?s risk management will be given two complements in this study.

The trend towards increasingly large farming units raises questions regarding how to better monitor production. Larger units make the impact from possible errors more severe, which increases the pressure on management supervision. To cope with management issues, prevent errors and handle increased demands on traceability and documentation, the Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) concept is making its way into various parts of agriculture. In sectors outside agriculture, RTLS are already being used successfully to track and locate items through nodes at different levels of accuracy, such as room level or the relative or absolute position. Empirical data can be received in real time from the nodes.

It becomes more important to consider different behaviour traits in the selection for dairy cows to be suitable in the production systems of today. The purpose of this investigation was to study the genetic background to behavioural traits and the heritabilities for temperament, rank order, aggressiveness, feeding behaviour and for learning behaviour. Moreover, the genetic correlations to other traits were studied. To be included in a breeding programme a trait needs to have enough genetic variation, a moderate to high heritability or to be correlated to another measurable trait. Behaviour is a quantitative trait affected by many genes and the environment.

The last years? financial situation has contributed to an increased willingness from the banks to handle risks. The most important risk to cope with is a risk that is related to a customer?s ability to repay loans. Forecasts indicate that in the future, Swedish farmers will be facing profitability challenges, which points to a need to reconsider the banks procedures considering risk management in credit granting for agricultural businesses.Today?s risk management will be given two complements in this study.

Swedish dairy production has during the last decades undergone considerable structural rationalisation and the number of dairy herds has decreased to less than 7000. At the same time the average herd size has increased and a large proportion of those investing in new buildings today choose automatic milking (AM). During 2008 more than ten percent of the Swedish cows will be milked with AM. The development has been faster than expected and the need for consulting has increased rapidly. This study aims to evaluate whether a check list originating from the FRISKKO (?healthy cow?) programme can be a useful tool when assessing how well the herd functions in various areas.

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.

Good feeding practices are a basic aspect of good calf health. During the calf's first few months the calf is fed with purchased milk replacer or raw milk straight from the cow. On all farms, it will be a surplus of milk that may not be delivered to the dairy for various reasons. Milk that may not be supplied to the dairy includes colostrum and milk with unnormal properties, including milk from cows suffering from mastitis. This study investigated the possibility of improving the milk by pasteurization in order to secure its use as feed for calves and thereby obtain an improved calf health.

Mastitis is the most common disease of dairy cows. Mastitis can be painful for the dairy cow and causes economical losses for the farmer. These losses are due to decreased milk production, more working hours for the farmer, treatment costs and possible costs due to culling of the cow. The udder inflammation, mastitis, is often caused by bacteria infection. One of the most common bacteria found to cause mastitis in Sweden is Staphylococcus aureus (S.

Organic Light Emitting Displays (OLEDs) are a new type of thin emissive displays predicted to possess superior properties to existing techniques e.g. Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). The main advantages are low power consumption and a thin display structure. This report contains an explanation of the emissive OLED technology, its functionality and the physics of the organic layer structure in an OLED. The technology is described with respect to the two classes of organic materials used in displays, small molecules and conjugated polymers.

Lao People?s Democratic Republic (PDR) is a country where the majority of the population works within the sector agriculture in one way or another. The number of goats are increasing and the animals can be an important income source for families. However, during the dry season, lack of feed is a great problem for the farmers. Fodder trees have shown great potential as dry season feeding, due to that the trees often hold green and fresh leaves a long time into the season, compared to grass that dry out quickly.

The soybean can be used in multiple ways, and its high oil content makes it suitable for extraction. Soy bean meal, a by-product of the oil extraction, is a good source of protein with a high feeding value, and is therefore used in a number of different animal feeds. Further, soy bean meal has a low production price, which is one of the reasons for the extensive export of the product. There is a great demand for vegetable-based proteins, especially in the organic production where synthetic amino acids are banned. However, the current production of soy beans is not environmentally sound and that combined with the long transport distances amplifies the need of finding a locally produced protein source.