Agrology students in Oulu University of Applied Sciences made a study of the suitability of bark in the feed of goat as an assignment of Raisioagro Oy. There has been made a preliminary study about the use of the bark as fodder in 2003. According to the preliminary study, there is need for the further study.

The aim of this thesis was to formulate a written plan about the realization of the production experiment. Besides the planning section, there will be made two theses about the theme, in which the results of the experiment will be cleared up. The aim of the experiment is to investigate the possible influence of the bark nutrition on goats, the amount of milk and its consistency. The experiment will be put in practice with the goats in the goat farm Tähti in Kiuruvesi.

A part of the concentrate of the goats will be replaced by bark in the experiment. The share of the bark is 7,5 % of concentrate. The test fodder is a powdery mixture of the bark and concentrate. The test fodder feeding will last 5 weeks. In the experiment the goats (20 animals) are divided into two groups. One of them will be given the test fodder and the control group normal concentrate. Besides that, the test animals will get silage, oat and pea according to the normal feed.

The possible changes due to the test fodder nutrition will be analyzed from the samples taken of the milk and blood during the experiment. In addition to that, the changes in the amounts of milk will be monitored with the help of a measure milking during the experiment.

The plan of the production experiment of the thesis is made in detail and the test is realizable basing on it. The main result is the plan of the experiment, which will serve the performers of the experiment. Raisioagro Oy can exploit the results of the experiment for further studies and possibly also for their own product development.