Raising a female dairy calf is an approximately 2-year investment before she enters the milking herd. Heifers should have greater production potential than cows leaving the herd. Diseases that occur early in a calf’s life can have far-reaching negative impacts on health, welfare, and milk production. Therefore, raising healthy calves to meet their potential should be prioritized. Early disease detection and intervention is anticipated to improve clinical health outcomes such as reduced disease severity and time to recovery. Health scoring and lung ultrasound work well together but requires time, technical training, and expensive equipment. There is growing interest in precision livestock technologies (PLT) to assist with health monitoring. However, few sensors are available and validated for calves. This work aims to compare the use of amplified upper and lower respiratory sound recordings from a digital stethoscope as a tool for early BRD detection alone, in combination with health scoring, and in combination with both thoracic ultrasound and health scoring. The results may yield insight into the use of respiratory sound recordings as an early predictor of BRD and to monitor for recovery. It will be hypothesis generating for methods to record, monitor, and interpret respiratory sounds. This work will benefit the New York State dairy industry by exploring a tool for BRD detection that is less expensive and requires minimal training as compared to ultrasound. The goal is to improve health and future productivity of replacement heifers.