The choice of harvest date for leys is one of the most important factors affecting the size and quality of the harvest. An early harvest gives a high nutritive value while a late harvest gives larger quantity. Today?s aim to produce high nutritive leys gives early harvest dates both in primary growth and regrowth in northern part of Sweden. The consequence is a growth in the autumn, a "third harvest".The aim of this master thesis was to study the effects of different harvesting systems and their effect on size, feed quality, wintering and economy for conditions in the northern part of Sweden.

In two feeding experiments Bacillus induced priming of plant defense was tested for its effect against the generalist insect pest Spodoptera littoralis. The main hypothesis for the study was that Bacillus induced priming would enable the plant Arabidopsis thaliana to defend itself better against this insect herbivore since this priming seems to involve jasmonic acid, known to be important for plant defense to insects. A secondary objective of the study was to examine if any differences in a primed defense capability could be seen between different natural genetic variants (ecotypes) of A. thaliana reflecting habitat differences in pest pressure. The methods used for plant cultivation and Bacillus inoculation were aimed at reflecting conditions that can be expected in an agricultural cropping system. This meant that all plants were cultivated in soil, and the feeding experiments were conducted with the plants growing intact in the soil system.

The coproduct, dried distillers grains + solubles (DDGS) from ethanol production based on wheat contains much rumen degradable protein and fiber with low digestibility. To compliment this quality in an effective way a grass silage low in protein and much digestible fiber is needed. The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of adjusting the crude-protein concentration and fiber quality of the silage when feeding DDGS and of varying the inclusion level of DDGS, when feeding the adjusted grass silage, on intake, milk yield and composition, faecal traits and feed efficiency. Four different total mixed rations were compared. The normal grass-clover silage had a crude protein content of 17,8 % and an NDF content of 46,2 % of dry matter. The adapted grass silage had a crude protein content of 14,6 % and an NDF content of 52,9 % of dry matter. The diets were formulated to have similar nutritional content except for A + 4 which had a higher content of rumen degradable crude protein and a lower concentration of NDF.

Animals in zoos live in more barren environments than their conspecifics in nature. In nature, elephants spend more than 75 % of the day foraging and have been observed lying down two hours during night. Stereotypies are common in many different species in zoos. Stereotypic behaviors may constitute up to 50 % of the daily activity budget of zoo elephants. Modern zoos try to reduce stereotypic behaviors by means of environmental enrichment.

The purpose of this thesis has been to gather knowledge about the complaints of tying-up in horses and to show that the importance of feeding. The thesis includes a literature review of tying-up how preventative measures by feeding can be made. In the equine sport, crosscountry, horses occasionally suffers from tying-up, a muscle disease. An increased knowledge about the disease is demanded by riders and trainers as the disease disrupts training and competition of suffered horses. A cross-country horse works very hard in training and during competitions but the work bouts are long enough for the muscle cells to use aerobic pathways in the metabolism.

The Effects of dietary biotin supplementation on hoof health in Swedish dairy cows - a controlled cohort field study. The aim of the present degree project was to investigate the effects of biotin supplementation on hoof health in dairy cows. The experiment was performed as a controlled cohort study in three commercial farms in western Sweden from January 2002 to October 2002. The cows were all housed in cubicle systems with transponder concentrate feeding systems. Within each farm the cows were allocated to either biotin or control treatment. The biotin groups received 20 mg of biotin per cow and day, starting 14 days before expected calving.

No summary of feeding recommendations for foals exists today, which is why this subject was chosen for a literature study. The aim of this study was to describe nutrient requirements of healthy full term foals and how the feeding should be designed to raise foals if they lose their mother. Mare milk composition changes during lactation to meet the requirements of the suckling foal. Foals are born with enzymes in their small intestine and the concentrations of these follow the consumption patterns of the foal. Microbes colonizes the gut as the foal becomes older and these changes cause foal diarrhea.

Sweden?s animal legislation was adopted in 1988 and is one of the most rigorous legislations in the world. Despite this, Sweden import beef from countries where animal legislation is not in accordance to the Swedish legislation. The meat consumption in Sweden has, just like the importation of beef, increased while Sweden?s own beef production has decreased.

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.

Today automatic milking systems (AMS) are growing in popularity. In these systems the cows are loose and have to get to the robot and the feed on their own. The cows ranking in this system affect their welfare. In this study data from seven years in an AMS was used and analysed. The aim was to investigate how ranking could affect the behaviour of the cows at milking and at feeding.

Stereotypic pacing is frequently observed in captive carnivores, however the underlying causes of this behaviour remain somewhat unclear. One of these possible causes are unpredictable feeding signals, which may give rise to frustration and subsequent pacing. Animal keepers at Nordens Ark had noticed that their Amur leopards had shown stereotypic pacing in connection to the passing of ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles) used by animal keepers primarly when feeding the animals in the park. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the stereotypic pacing of the two Amur leopards at Nordens Ark were affected by the introduction of a signal associated with feeding. The leopards were trained by classical conditioning to associate the sound of a siren with the delivery of food by an animal keeper.

Vaccination of fish can be assumed to cause pain. This study was designed to see if we can minimize the suffering of fish following vaccination. Fishes are cold-blooded animals and thus more primitive than warm-blooded animals. Despite this, many organs, e.g. the nervous system, have the same basic structure as that of other vertebrates. The fibre system for conducting pain is more diffuse than in humans.

This work is intended primarily for animal nurses/veterinary technicians and describe parts of the rabbits digestive tract, causes of gastrointestinal disease, symptoms, diagnosis, general care of rabbits with gastrointestinal disease and how to prevent that gastrointestinal illness occur. The work is largely based on literature studies but also on a questionnaire sent out to rabbit owners to get answers on how they generally hold and care of rabbits, which gastrointestinal diseases that are most common, how owners care for their animals at home during illness and to examine if the owners think that the knowledge of this subject is good at his veterinarian/clinic.The purpose of this work is to improve the skills of animal nurses but also to improve the skills of owners through competent advice from animal nurses.The result show that gastrointestinal disease often is caused due to improper feeding and care of rabbits and therefore is advices from animal nurses an important part of preventive care. Animal nurses are also an important part of treatment of rabbits with gastrointestinal disease when supportive care as fluid therapy, supportive feeding and supply of a stress free environment is important for the animals to recover..

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.

In Automatic Milking Systems (AMS), cows are kept in a free stall barn equipped with one or several milking units (MU). The cows? activities in the system are called cow traffic. There are three types of cow traffic systems: guided, partly-guided and free. Free systems have no gates, allowing the cows access to the feeding and resting areas at any time.