Scientific Management of Pregnant Dams and Calves

India is predominantly an agrarian society where animal husbandry forms the backbone of national economy. Animal husbandry plays an important role in socio-economic development and employment generation for rural people especially, to small and marginal farmers and landless labours by providing round the year steady income from animal produce. India has largest livestock population in the world but productivity of Indian dairy animal remains substantially low as compared to potential and world average. Besides the poor genetic potential and poor economic status, this low productivity could largely be attributed to low level of knowledge and adoption of scientific breeding, feeding, management and health care technologies. There is a need to sensitize the dairy farmers to the modern technologies and scientific interventions in dairy production in order to enhance milk yield and milk quality from dairy animals. Knowledge about scientific management of pregnant dams and calves by livestock farmers has great scope for improving productivity, profitability and sustainability of dairy farming, especially for resource poor and socioeconomically deprived rural farmer.