This review positions calf nutrition not simply as a management tool for short-term performance but as a biological lever with far-reaching impacts on lifelong animal health, efficiency, and sustainability.
Calf nutrition research has undergone a paradigm shift over the past two decades, moving from practices focused on cost efficiency and early weaning toward a deeper appreciation of the long-term biological and economic value of early-life feeding.
This review synthesizes advances in energy and protein nutrition of dairy calves, with particular attention to how milk allowance, liquid feed composition, weaning strategies, and postweaning diets shape growth, health, and lifetime productivity.