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Technological alternatives for the handling and land application of solid and semi-solid manure are very limited compared to corresponding systems for liquid manure and slurry. Moreover, the efficiency of the few systems currently available needs to be improved. In order to develop the engineering and technical knowledge required to optimize the design and performance of solid and semi-solid manure handling and land application equipment, selected manure physical and rheological properties have been measured for different types of manure. To model the machineproduct interactions taking place in handling and land application equipment, the distinct element method (DEM), a numerical method for the simulation of granular materials flow, has been selected. This machine-product interactions modeling process includes two components. First, a good representation of manure products, based on their measured physical and rheological properties, must be obtained for inclusion in the distinct element (DE) models. The second step is to introduce machinery elements to get some insights into the behavior of manure products in handling and land application equipment. This progress paper presents ranges of values for selected manure properties as well as preliminary DE models. The manure properties will be used to define appropriate sets of parameters that will allow for a good replication of manure products in the software environment. DE models of different mechanical configurations for solid and semi-solid manure handling and land application equipment will be used to study key operating parameters in terms of machine performance.