Towards loose housing in Swedish organic dairy production

Summary

For hundreds years there has been a tradition with tethered dairy cows in Sweden. The last decades the old fashioned way to hold cows have been questioned and the number of dairy cows in loose housing has been increasing. Last year (2004) 19 percent in total of all farms with milk production in Sweden had their cows in loose housing. Because of EU-legislation concerning all organic production no farms are allowed to build tie stalls any more and after 2010 all organic dairy cows are supposed to live in loose-housing systems.
The aim of the thesis was mainly to find out the number of farms with tethered organic dairy cows. Furthermore the purpose was to study if there are any regional differences regarding the building system for organic dairy herds. There are important differences between buildings made for conventional dairy cows and organic ones. Some examples from organic rules are that calf and cow are allowed to go together during the whole colostrums period and the area per animal in some cases is bigger. That often makes organic buildings for dairy cows more expensive to build than conventional ones.
In the end of 2004 60 percent of the organically kept dairy cows, which is equivalent to 40 percent of the farms in Sweden, were already in loose-housing systems depending on that decision. There are big regional differences.