In this study, 29 Calves were dehorned by heat cauterisation at the age of 1 to 8 weeks. Before the procedure, the Calves were given local anaesthetic but were not sedated. In connection with the dehorning, 14 Calves were given the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) meloxicam and 15 Calves were given placebo. During the following three days behavioural studies were performed to investigate if the different treatments had any effect on the Calves´ postoperative behaviour. Head shakes, head rubs, kicks and ear flicks were studied, as earlier studies have shown that an increase in these behavioural patterns suggests postoperative pain.

The aim for this study was to investigate if it is less stressful for cow and Calves in loose housing systems when separation is made so they can see and touch each other (Physical Contact-PC) instead of just hearing each other (Hearing Contact-HC). The behavior of eight cow- calf pairs (n=4 pairs per treatment) on an ecological dairy farm with cubicle housing were studied for four hours directly after separation and four hours the day after separation. The first four cows that gave birth were used for treatment PC, and the following four cows that gave birth were used for treatment HC. The only selection criteria used was that both cow and calf were healthy. Separation took place 3-4 days after birth and the Calves were put separately in two different pens while the mothers were let loose into the cubicle system.

In modern dairy production, the newborn calf generally is separated from its mother and put in a single pen for some time before it is introduced to group housing. Group housing is becoming more and more common because it saves the farmer a lot of valuable time. Even thought group housing has a lot of benefits it is often associated with a higher morbidity and mortality in the young Calves. Therefore, knowing the optimal way to use the group pen lies in many farmers? interests and the importance of different factors such as the optimal age of introduction is important to evaluate. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of age at introduction to group housing on the health of the Calves in the group pen.

When beef Calves are weaned abruptly at 5 to 6 months of age this triggers a strong stress reaction, since the animals have not yet untied the bonds to their mothers or stopped suckling. This is displayed as extensive vocalization and restlessness. Attempts to diminish the negative effects of weaning on sucking Calves have been showing varying results. The study presented here emanates from the observation that when Calves are weaned without human interference they are only prevented from suckling, but are still allowed to have social contacts with their mothers. The hypothesis was that Calves weaned in two steps would be calmer, gain more weight, and be healthier than animals that were abruptly weaned. To investigate this, 15 Calves where weaned in two stages (Group 2), by fitting the Calves with nose tags that prevented them from suckling during 5 days prior to the separation of the cows and Calves.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of strategy for grouping Calves into group pens with automatic milk-feeding systems on the Calves' health and growth rate. The usefulness of changes in feeding behavior recorded by the computerized milk-feeder during periods of illness to identify Calves with clinical diease was also studied. In the first experiment, 64 Calves were moved in and out of group pens in a continuous way, while 46 Calves were transferred into group pens until the the pen was considered "full". The Calves in the latter groups were then held together until weaning. It was found that Calves in the fixed groups grew approximately 100 g / day more compared to the Calves in the dynamic groups. Signs of clinical respiratory disease were less frequent in this group, while the incidence of diarrhoea was slightly higher. In the second experiment health parameters, milk consumption and feeding behaviour was recorded daily for 46 Calves.

Healthy Calves are the foundation in order to run a profitable diary production. Being healthy as calf results in a better start in life and good growth is expected to follow. Within dairy production it becomes more common to rear Calves in groups and feed them by an automatic milk feeder. The milk feeder enables for the Calves in greater extent to ingest milk or milk replacer several times per day and they are also able to perform natural behaviors in greater extent. Group rearing of Calves puts higher demands on the animal keepers to localize individual Calves in the group pen, showing signs of illness.

Pneumonia is a common disease in Calves. There are several causes behind the disease. The main purpose of this litterary study was to estimate what kind of nursing Calves with pneumonia could benefit from, especially the evidence-based nursing recommendations for the sick Calves. A further purpose was to gain knowledge of different treatments of sick Calves and what kind of practical measurements that are most suitable to use in the preventive work. The results in this study shows that there are only suggestions of nursing, rather than some actual evidence-based actions. The most important nursing actions is to isolate the Calves with dyspnea, prevent or treatment of hypothermia, potential dehydration and malnutrition. It is also important to make sure to place the calf on soft and dry bedding.

The purpose of this literature review was to investigate how the rearing systems influence the behaviour of dairy Calves. Calves are social animals that form groups within the herd where play and social licking between Calves are important social activities. Suckling is a complex behaviour and essential for the calf's survival. In the modern rearing systems the calf is usually separated from its mother soon after birth. Calves are then kept in individual pens, group pens or, more rarely, with a foster cow.

Since long, Sweden has had exceptionally low calf mortality compared to most other countries. The tradition has been to keep Calves in individual pens. With increasing number of cows per herd there is now a larger interest in more efficient and economical group systems for housing Calves. However it has been noticed that bigger herds have more health problems and higher calf mortality than smaller herds. The early signs of disease are harder to detect when the animals are not fed manually.

Twenty-four Calves, which had not grazed previously, were divided into four groups. They were subsequently inoculated orally with either E. alabamensis oocysts, O.ostertagi/C. oncophora larvae, or both. One group remained uninfected and was used as a control.

In order to optimize calf welfare and health it is important to know the behavior of cattle in free ranging conditions. When the cow is about to give birth to a calf she will leave the heard about 12 hours before. It is then rather obvious that isolating the cow about calving time in a single pen is imitating the cows? natural behavior. To save space and minimize building cost it?s common that the farmers build calving pens for four of five cows especially at larger farms.

In order to investigate if the KRAV-regulations have any effects on the health and welfare of Calves, KRAV-affiliated farms were compared to conventional farms with respect to calf management and outcome. The dairy calf has had a low economical impact during history. Even today the value of the calf is low and a lot of Calves have a poor health status. The calf breeding is built on tradition and on the fact, that cheap antibiotics have made it possible to ignore, the recommendations about good hygiene in the calf?s environment.

In this study, cortisol in saliva and pain related behaviours in Calves were used as markers of distress when comparing two different dehorning methods; scoop or cautery. We also investigated the effect of a non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), meloxikam, on postoperative distress after dehorning with either dehorning scoop or cautery iron. Twenty Calves were dehorned on one randomly chosen side by scoop method and on the other side by cautery. Five months later, the effect on horn growth was investigated. Horn production was observed in seven of the Calves.

Cryptosporidium parvum is a protozoan parasite causing diarrhoea in many different animal species including cattle and man. It is an important enteric pathogen in neonatal Calves and it is the second most common pathogen found in diarrhoeic Calves in Sweden. Subclinically infected adult cattle have, in international studies, been shown to shed a low number of oocysts in faeces and this has been recognised as a potential source of infection for new-born Calves. The detection methods used for diagnostic purposes are based on microscopic investigation of faecal smears. These methods have a fairly low sensitivity and samples from subclinically infected cattle have to be concentrated before analysis.

Swedish agriculture stands in front of big changes the whole time. As a milking producer you have to adapt and develop the company to these changes and find the best solution. This potential is easy to find if you compare your company with other similar companies. Labour cost is the biggest cost in milking production after the cost for food. Today it is rather easy to measure how many hours per cow different system of cow houses needs, but we do not know so much about how many hours it takes to breed a calf. To learn more about the labour time with the Calves during the first time after the calf was born, I made time studies on five different farms with calf hutches, automatic milk system, large calf boxes, and smaller calf boxes with teat buckets.