Dear friends, family, students, students-to-be and other readers, It’s been a long time since I’ve written about my experiences as an Uppsala student at SLU. The truth is, I have almost finished my masters and moved back to the Netherlands already… no more snow for me, haha. I found an amazing job as an inspector… Continue reading Last post.
Category: Studies
Combs, Claws and Feathers
Last week we collected the last data for the preference tests. Meaning our project is slowly coming to an end. But before handing the chickens to their new private owners, we wanted to get some more information from them. During the project we’ve executed home pen observations, location & behavioural observations in the preference pens… Continue reading Combs, Claws and Feathers
Catching Chickens & Collecting Data
After considering the study design, pilot studies and necessary preparations, we’ve been running our preference test for a couples of weeks now. This means that a few groups of our chickens are moved from their home pen to the test pen, where they will be observed closely for a couple of days. Observations run through a… Continue reading Catching Chickens & Collecting Data
Saws, Drills and Hammers
Wait, what did I study again? Yes, you are still on the blog representing the master programme of animal science, haha. You may have read that I have been busy with preparing a preference test for chickens. Well, this is a big part of the preparations – the practical part – so to say. As… Continue reading Saws, Drills and Hammers
Preparing a Preference Test
Since a few months I have been doing behavioural observations of the chickens as part of my degree project. However, soon I will start with the second part of this research project as well; the preference test. The idea is not to difficult to understand. A certain space is divided into two or multiple areas… Continue reading Preparing a Preference Test
Exams & Evaluation
Last week our housing course came to and end. Our final exam was an essay type home-exam. I’ve written before about the variety of examination types here at SLU. I still found it a bit hard to prepare for such an exam, as it’s not a method I am used to. However, I think the… Continue reading Exams & Evaluation
Excursion to an organic dairy farm
Waiting in front of the barn, opposite the summer pastures, now covered in snow There is one more excursion from the animal housing course I’d like to tell you more about. The same day as visiting the active horse stable, we went to see an organic dairy farm. As we had already been looking at… Continue reading Excursion to an organic dairy farm
Project-work: Planning & design
With the final exam coming up this Monday the housing course is soon coming to an end. It’s feels like it was yesterday when we started! Last week was fully dedicated to our project-work and the presentations of it. We have been working for several weeks in small groups on the task to plan and… Continue reading Project-work: Planning & design
The ideal horse-housing system?
What is a horse, really? I don’t mean to find an answer to a description of what a horse looks like, I mean, we all know that it has four legs, a head, mane and tail. But think again. What makes a horse, a horse? What does a horse do? Let’s look at a horse… Continue reading The ideal horse-housing system?
Workshop mechanical ventilation
It’s already almost the end of February. Crazy how the time seems to fly by. Also, it means that we’re more than halfway with the housing course. I’ve told you about a couple of excursions(to Jälla and Lövsta) we’ve done for this course so far, but this time I’d like to give you some insight… Continue reading Workshop mechanical ventilation