Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is one of the leading causes of pre-weaning death in dairy heifers. The objective of this prospective cohort study was to characterize the epidemiology of BRD in preweaned dairy calves and to identify management practices that reduce the incidence of BRD. Dairies were chosen for the study based on management practices, calf records, location, and size. A total of 6 dairies, ranging in size from 700 to 3,200 milking cows, in 6 counties across California’s Central Valley, were enrolled for at least one year. A total of 11,945 calves were born on the study dairies and followed from birth to weaning. Incidence of BRD was estimated using treatment records. A comprehensive calf management survey and prevalence estimate was performed by trained study personnel once every season. A shared frailty model was used to explore the associations between management practices and BRD. A total of 11,470 calves with complete records were included in the final models. The overall BRD prevalence across the study herds was 22.84% (95% confidence interval, CI = 0.22–0.24). The mean incidence density rate (IDR) for all dairies was 0.17 cases (95% CI = 0.16–1.74) per calf-month at risk. The shared frailty model found that feeding only waste or saleable milk (compared with use of milk replacer), feeding over 3.8 L of milk per day to calves under 21 d of age, frequent changing of maternity pen bedding, and administration of both modified live or killed BRD vaccines to dams before calving significantly reduced the risk of BRD. Risk factors for developing BRD included if the calf was a twin and if calf managers held the opinion that dust was perceived to occur “regularly” compared with no dust in the calf raising area. All 4 seasons were analyzed and it was found that both summer (HR = 1.15 (95% CI = 1.01–1.32)) and spring (HR = 1.26 (95% CI = 1.11–1.44)) were associated with a higher risk of BRD as compared with winter. Our study found that specific housing and feeding practices could be modified to help decrease the risk of BRD and a strong effect for season on a calf's risk of developing BRD.