Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The aim with the literature study is to inform about the risks that exists in large dairy farms
(with focus on mastitis and hoof health) and to inform about the milk industry in Sweden.
Personal comments from two study visits (Nötcenter Viken and Vadsbo Mjölk AB) are
linked together with the literature and forms into a discussion regarding sustainable
agriculture versus the milk cow's welfare.
The profitability for Sweden's milk farmers have decreased because of the decreased milk
price and current inflation. This leads to an increase in herdsize in order to make a profit.
The milk cow herds in Sweden becomes fewer year by year and the herdsize increases. The
increased herdsize can cause a decrease in the time the farmer spends per animal. This can
affect early disease detection and prolong the animals suffering.
Swedish Board of Agriculture published (2008) statistics showing that today's milk cow is
medicated primarily because of two reasons; mastitis or hoof problems. Mastitis is the
reason to two thirds of all treatments that are carried out. Mastitis causes pain for the
animal and economic losses for the farmer. The disease seems to increase with herdsize.
Automated controls are developed in order to detect mastitis in an early stage. Different
indicators in the milk reveal if the cow suffers from mastitis or not. In order to induce the
number of mastitis in a herd should among other thing good hygiene be maintained. Hoof
diseases cause infertility, weight reduction and contributes to big economic losses for the
farmer. 2% of the dairy cows registered in the Swedish kokontrollen are annually treated
because of a hoof disease. Automated controls in order to detect lameness are developed
because of the difficulties of detecting lameness in a large herd. Lameness causes a change
in the cow´s weight distribution over her four limbs. Measures of weight distribution are
therefore used as parameters.
The risk of infection is higher in a large herd than in a smaller one because of the increased
number of animals introduced. A possible infection can also affect a larger number of
individuals. One should distribute the cows in a large herd into more stable buildings then
one with a maximum of 200-250 animals per building in order to sustain a reasonable animal
health level.