The obesity problem in the world is growing bigger and today even our companion animals are becoming heavier. In this paper the importance of a balanced diet for the companion animal is emphasised. There are many disadvantages for the animal and for the owner if the animal becomes obese and it is important to stress the facts on what the consequences might be. There are several medical conditions connected to obesity and a short summary of these will be discussed. It is often easier to prevent obesity rather than loosing the overweight and some ideas of how to do this is looked in to. In many veterinary clinics today, the veterinary nurse is the first and sometimes the only person to see the animal.

Many farms in the counties in the south of Sweden have difficulties with diseases spread by ticks; mainly babesiosis and tick-borne fever (TBF) but there are indications that borreliosis ought to be included. All of the tick-borne diseases radically decrease farm profit if the herd is affected. The production of the vaccine used against babesiosis since the 1920´s, will be discontinued in the near future and in addition to economical reasons it is therefore important to learn more about the diseases above. During the summer and fall of 2002 and 2003, a farm in the island of Gotland was burdened with unusually many cases of bovine babesiosis. In total 43 animals fell ill and one died.

This study examines the factors that influence the seasonal movements of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos), and can thus provide important information that helps to improve the protection of the species. There were two main purposes of this study. First, I wanted to analyze the difference between preferences of juvenile and adult Golden Eagles in their choice of southern or northern hibernation areas. Do younger eagles prefer moving longer distance to southern areas of Sweden? Second, I wanted to investigate how the climate influenced the choice of date of migration in the fall.

Military dogs in Sweden spend their first 18 months after weaning with a foster owner that has volunteered to care for its upbringing. The foster owner is advised by a consultant and offered three opportunities to train the dog together with other foster owners. There is a positive correlation between the number of attended training opportunities with the consultant, or other professional dog trainers, and the results of the dog in the temperament test at the end of the 18 months. The test results are in turn positively correlated with the likelihood of the dog to enter service. This thesis aims to investigate why the number of training opportunities is important for the dog?s chance to enter service by identifying foster owner factors that influence the success of the dog and which temperament test items the factors have the strongest impact on.

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is an elusive felid, native to the mountains in central Asia. Basic knowledge about the snow leopards? ecology has long been lacking but is advancing with the help of the GPS-technology. GPS cluster analysis can provide insight in the diet and prey selection of elusive predators, such as the snow leopard. Acceleration data from GPS collars can be used to study animal behavior but the two have never been combined to gain more detailed information of the feeding behavior of large carnivores.

West Pokot County is located in North Western part of Kenya where the previous lifestyle was nomadic pastoralism. However, in recent years the semi-arid county has been under dramatic developments and a sedentary agro-pastoral lifestyle is now growing. This is a major change in production systems and there is a big knowledge gap especially for the livestock based agro-pastoral systems. The main objective of this study was to investigate the current situation of animal husbandry in West Pokot. Twenty farmers were interviewed in Chepareria Division, using semi-structured interviews to investigate if the use of enclosures have had any effect on animal husbandry in West Pokot and if so, how have this method affected the animal husbandry? The results of the study indicated that there is a difference in animal husbandry between farms using enclosures and farms not using enclosures.

Roads and railroads have significant impact on the surrounding landscape and the wildlife living in it. This study aims to provide an overview of the effects caused by railways to reindeer, roe deer and moose in Sweden in order to make more detailed assessments within this topic in the future. The method used is a study of literature on the subject and a synthesis of databases with information about wildlife mortalities, traffic intensity and fences in the study area; northern and central Sweden. The databases were used to compile digital maps using ArcGIS. Infrastructure brings change to the surrounding landscape and its function as habitat for wildlife. Railroads cause barrier effects such as fragmentation, wildlife mortality, loss of habitat and loss of connectivity.

Total mixed rations (TMR) and TMR complemented with individual grain feeding to dairy cows are a growing practice in Sweden. This is because the heard sizes of the farms are increasing. Some farmers and farm advisors in Sweden have great knowledge and practical experience of working with TMR. In the same time there are many advisors that do not know how to handle TMR and farms that have a group based feeding of their animals. In this MSc thesis, the knowledge of farmers that use TMR and advisors with lots of experience of TMR are gathered, with the aim to create a guide book for advisors that are about to start or just have started working with TMR.

Animals in zoos live in small enclosed areas. If a pathogen is introduced to the zoo, the animals are extremely vulnerable. The highest risk of introducing new pathogens occurs when new animals are introduced to the collection. Therefore it is essential that zoos have a protocol in place for disease prevention. This review has studied literature on the subject of disease prevention protocols when translocating animals between zoos.

Local differentiation may occur during a short period of time and is part of the formation of new species. The isopod Asellus aquaticus is an example of a species in which local adaptation has occurred during a short period of time. An establishment of stonewort (Chara spp.) vegetation in Lake Tåkern (in the 2000) resulted in two different Asellus ecotypes; a lighter pigmented, smaller one that lives among stoneworts grazing periphytic algae, and a darker, larger ecotype that feeds on decaying leaves in reed (Phragmites australis vegetation. The purpose of this study was to examine whether there are differences in growth between ecotypes, depending on whether the food was periphytic algae or leaves, and to study the choice of substrates between the two food types. For the study, animals from both habitats were brought in from Lake Tåkern to the laboratory.

During one week (9-13 May, 2005) the use of veterinary diets for the hospitalised patients att the University clinic was registered. The animal owners were interviewed by telephone six months later about the feeding after coming home. Four out of ten animal owners answered yes to the question if the veterinarian had asked what food their animal normally consumed. Out of 35 animals, 15 (43%) were prescribed to a veterinary diet. Among cats it was 8 out of 14 (57%) and among dogs it was 7 out of 21 (33%). Four animals out of ten were recommended a veterinary diet when going home, but 20% did not follow the recommendation all the way through and stopped feeding their animal the veterinary diet. Reasons that were given was that the diet didn't last the entire period, that the animal didn't need the diet anymore according to the owner and one dog that became to lean when fed the diet. The diagnosis for these three dogs was vomiting, foreign body in the digestive system and bloody diarrhoea.

The mountainous Central Asian and former Soviet country Tajikistan is the least advantaged country economically among the former Soviet Union states. Approximately 6.5 % of the land is arable in a country where roughly 80 % of the households typically own small numbers of sheep and goats. Management practices and animal husbandry in the villages such as uncontrolled breeding, mixing of animals on pastures favor transmission of infectious diseases. Brucellosis is a zoonotic bacterial disease caused by Brucella spp. The disease is endemic in Tajikistan. B.

The domesticated rabbit stems from the European Wild rabbit and researchers have found that they share most of the characteristics and behaviors of their wild ancestor. They form mating groups in which strong hierarchic orders are formed and they are known for their ability to dig warrens which serve as one of the most important resources for this species. Although research has been performed to increase the welfare of rabbits kept in laboratory settings little is known about the housing, behavior and welfare of the pet rabbit. Among the research that has been performed within the area results have shown that the animals are kept in small solitary cages and that although many rabbits are purchased mainly for the children many animals cannot be handled by children due to display of aggression. Another conclusion drawn is that the animals are kept in ways that differs greatly from their natural environment.

Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus (BRSV) is a common cause of respiratory disease among young cattle. The virus causes severe losses; the herd mortality rate can sometimes be as high as 20 %. In this study the avidity (i.e the antigen binding force) of BRSV specific antibodies was measured to see if there was a difference between antibodies produced during an acute phase of infection and antibodies produced by earlier infected animals. A commercially available ELISA-testkit against BRSV-specific antibodies was used and an incubation step with 6M urea was added. The effect of the urea is that it breaks the weak bonds between antibodies and antigen while the stronger bonds remain intact. Four different groups of animals were included in this study; seven calves that were naturally infected, three acutely infected calves with known time of infection, five cows that were seropositive during several years and four experimentally infected calves that had been a part of a vaccine trial. The results of this study showed that antibodies produced during the acute phase of an infection had a low avidity and that the avidity increased with time after infection.

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.