Manure Handling Frequently Asked Questions

Manure handling is the management of how manure is captured, stored, treated, and later used in farm operations.

It can be, which is why the safe handling of manure is a critical process farmers engage in at their operations.

Manure contains a large amount of harmful pathogens such as E. coli, Listeria, Cryptosporidium, and Salmonella bacteria. Additionally, manure can also produce harmful gasses such as hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide. In high amounts, inhaling any of these gasses can be toxic to humans, livestock, and pets.

For more resources on the dangers of manure, visit the National Ag Safety Database.

Tractor Zoom currently features over 338 pieces of manure handling equipment for sale from dealers and auctioneers around the country. Narrow down your search with our easy-to-use filters to find the exact make/model you’re looking for or view only the manure handling equipment in your state. From there, sort your search results based on what is closest to you, what has been most recently added, and much more.

Liquid and dry manure spreaders are used to spread manure across a field via a trailer with a spinner or beater (dry) or directly injected into the soil (liquid). Additional equipment such as tanks, pumps, hoses, agitators, scrapers, and more typically make up a larger manure system.

Manure provides an organic source of nutrients — nitrogen, phosphorus, and others — that helps a crop grow and thrive. The organic matter in manure can also improve the texture and moisture content of the soil, ultimately helping to improve crop yields while also reducing soil loss and protecting water quality due to contaminated runoff.

Tractor Zoom partners with 720 auctioneers and 1718  dealer locations across the country. We feature all auctioneers in your region or equipment dealers near you that sell manure handling equipment on our website, or you can simply complete a search for manure handling equipment and results will automatically populate with available manure handling equipment for sale that is closest to you.

Farmers use livestock manure as a natural fertilizer to provide nutrients to crops. Manure can be used for fertilizer in its raw state and is often freshly applied for those operations that have livestock that generate manure. Manure can be further processed via composting or pelleting, which helps to stabilize the manure for further handling. 

Farmers use dry or liquid manure spreaders to apply the manure to their fields. Dry manure spreaders look like a large trailer that is pulled behind a tractor. The trailers have a spinning apparatus towards the back, called a spinner or a beater, that spreads the manure across the field. A liquid manure spreader is a large tank pulled behind a tractor that sprays manure over the field or injects it directly into the soil.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “manure contains many useful, recyclable components, including nutrients, organic matter, solids, energy, and fiber.” Using manure as fertilizer is one way farmers lessen their environmental impact.

Farmers typically apply manure prior to planting season or in the fall post-harvest. Whether the farmer applies manure in the spring or fall will largely depend on the region or soil composition. The nutrients in manure are slowly released over many months, so applying manure in the fall may be the best timing in order to fully take advantage of its benefits come planting time. However, excessive rainfall or snowmelt in the fall and winter may seep away all the nutrients delivered come springtime, so a spring application may be more beneficial to some farmers.

You can access a full list of dealers that have manure handling equipment for sale in your region or state on Tractor Zoom.

Tractor Zoom is not a bank, but we do help facilitate financing and loans for manure handling equipment with our industry-leading lenders. Compare loan interest rates and terms for your manure handling equipment purchase from multiple lenders so you can select the best financing option that meets your unique needs.

The value of your harvesting equipment can vary based on its category, make, year, location, capacity, and hours of operation, among many other factors that are specific to the model. Understanding what equipment is worth is a challenge many farmers come across. In fact, 82% of the farmers we surveyed said it was their #1 pain point when buying and selling farm equipment.

With that challenge in mind, Tractor Zoom built a feature called Equipment Lists, which allows farmers to quickly and accurately gauge the value of their manure handling equipment (for FREE) based on its unique specifications. We leverage over $20B in equipment sales, and update our transaction data weekly, so farmers always have up-to-date auction and retail values to gauge what their manure handling equipment is worth in near, real-time.