1. Remove/clean any mucous from nostrils and mouth of new born immediately after birth. Normally the cow licks the calf immediately after birth. This act facilitates drying off the calf and helps in stimulating breathing and circulation.
2. If the cow do not lick the calf, rub and dry the calf with a dry cloth.
3. The umbilical cord should be tied with a thread about 2-5 cm away from the body and cut 1 cm below the ligature and apply antiseptic solution such as Tincture Iodine, etc.
4. Remove the wet bedding from the pen to keep it clean and dry.
5. Weigh the calf at birth should be recorded.
6. Wash the cow’s udder and teats with lukewarm water, preferably with some mild antiseptic solution.
7. Allow the calf to suckle colostrum (milk produced in 2-3 days at the beginning of lactation).
8. The calf should be standing up within one hour. If not, help the calf stand up.

• Schedule up to 3 months, 3-6 months 6-12 m
• The proper feeding and management of calves during their first five days after birth are vital for their later growth and development of body organs.
• The birth weight of the calf has its relation to the feeding and care of the mother in the later part of her pregnancy.
• The calves immediately after birth should be fed at least ½ litre colostrums within 2 hours.
• However, its feeding up to 1/10th of the body weight should be continued up to 5 days.
• Milk feeding Milk is considered to be a high nutritive value complete feed for young calves and exhibits best feed efficiency for growth

Calves at 3 months of age start eating greed fodder and calf starter along with milk. The rumen is developed at this stage to pick up microbial digestion. With the establishment of rumen micro flora the calves are in a position to handle concentrate and roughage for ruminal degradation. The calves are therefore, fully kept on calf starter, succulent green fodder and good quality hay to meet out growth requirements. The calves reach to a stage to consume one kg calf starter, succulent green fodder and good quality hay to meet out growth, the intake of which increases on advancing the age and body weight of the calves.

At this stage rumen is fully developed and calves could meet mist of their requirement from succulent forage. By 6 months the calves weigh about 100-150 kg and more than 70% of their nutrient requirements are met from roughages. If properly cared and fed well young calves could weigh about 150-250 kg at 12 months of age and 200-300 kg at 18 months. At 100 kg body weight calve scan meet the growth requirement by providing kg concentrate mixture and 12 kg non leguminous good quality fodder and for every 50 kg increase in body weight a proportionate increase of feeding stuffs could be made. If the28 roughage source is leguminous fodders the quantity of concentrate mixture could accordingly be adjusted after supplementing dry roughage since the total dry matter intake is hardly 3% of the body weight and one third requirement should be supplied from concentrate, In case the roughage availability is only wheat straw/ paddy straw or stovers, the entire nutrient requirements are to be met from concentrate sources.

• Calves of different age groups are housed separately.
• Calves up to 1 month are housed individually preferably up to 3 months. They should be provided with 1 X1 M2 floor area.
• After 3 months 3-5 calves are kept in single pen.
• After 6 month to breedable age the animals are kept in single.
• After 6 months of age the male calves are disposed for breeding or slaughter purpose

Natural suckling

1. This is done by keeping the new born calf with its mother and suckle the milk. Calf rearing will be difficult if its mother dies and chances of transmission diseases is more

Artificial rearing

2. In this method calf is removed immediately after birth or 2-3 days of birth Calves can be reared by scientific feeding.

Scours Parasites

1. Endo parasites like coccidia, lung worms and tape worms are the major parasites that cause mortality in calves. Proper deworming schedule should be followed to control the endo parasites.
2. Ecto-parasites like ticks, lice and mites controlled by using drugs like cypermethrin, deltamethrin etc. Vaccination schedule

Pneumonia

1. Overcrowding, transportation, and exposure to infectious agents through the keeping the calves in group pens or housing the calves with older animals
2. This is second most common cause for the mortality of young calves

Dehorning

• Horn serves no useful purpose on dairy cattle, cause body injuries and horned cattle require more space. Hence, dehorn the calf as early as possible when calves are 4 to 10 days old.
• Dehorning can be done by using chemicals like Caustic Potash (KOH) or Caustic soda (Na2OH), hot-iron, dehorning saw, clippers, elastrator and electric dehorner. Castration

Castration

• Removal of testicles is called as castration.
• Male calves which nor preferred for breeding, make the animals docile and amenable should be castrated.
• Male calves are castrated at age of one year old either open or closed methods. Identification

Identification

• Proper identification of calves is essential for scientific rearing, obviating over the dispute, stolen etc.
• Calves are identified mainly by tagging, tattooing, branding, RFID etc.