Indigenous cattle have been an essential part of traditional agriculture and have contributed significantly from a social, cultural, emotional, and ecological perspective in addition to their contributions to the economy and means of livelihood. In order to investigate the existing rearing and management practices followed by the farmers in the study area an exploratory study was conducted in four districts of Manipur State i.e. Imphal East, Imphal West, Bishnupur and Churachandpur. A total of 120 respondents rearing indigenous cattle were selected randomly from 20 villages of four districts. The information regarding the important rearing and management practices in the fields of housing, feeding, breeding, health care, and general care aspects was collected using a semi-structured interview schedule. The study shows that the farmers reared the indigenous cattle mainly on extensive system. Mostly locally accessible materials, including bamboo and wood, were used to build the cattle shed. Natural method of the breeding system was practised by all farmers. Combination of both stall feeding and grazing were practised as feeding method by majority of the farmers (75.00%). Due to less space, isolation of sick animals was not followed and treatment of sick animals was mostly done by VFA (62.50%). Cleaning of cow shed was mostly done twice a day (50.00%) and majority utilised the dung for manure (51.70%) purpose. The present study clearly indicated that majority of the farmers are practicing more traditional way of rearing and there is a great potential to improve the indigenous cattle rearing practices through selective breeding programme.